The Architects standard catalogues, 9th edition 1939-41
Browsing Category Articles
Carpentry reference: Modern Practical joinery by G.Ellis
Model Practical Joinery by G Ellis , second edition 1925
Carpentry reference: The Carpenter’s and Joiners Assistant
The Carpenter and Joiner assistant by J Newlands 1860
Scarfing in
An area of wet rot to a 1930s window appears to be the result of either water ingress past the putty or insufficient primer used when painting a previous repair. As you can see I made a cut out of the effected area leaving in the piece that has the interior moulding it may have been a whole new window if the wet rot had eaten away at the moulding.
A new piece was then added and fastened with glue and screws, timber plugs were used to plug the screw holes. Not entirely necessary but a far more professional finish. Once dry the window was re-hung and primed.
What about those hinges?
Without the correct grade of hinges your doors may fail. Failure doesn’t mean that your door falls off its hinges; normally failure comes in the form of a door starting to stick or rub on the door frame. If it’s sticking along the edge of the door against the frame anywhere above the lock or latch, then the top hinge may have failed. Often it’s the pin that stretches. This is enough to throw the door out towards the frame. Another common symptom is where the lock no longer strikes the plate in the correct place, often leading to the key having to be forced to turn.
Another tell tell sign would be hinges that start to creek – that’s the hinge saying it can’t cope with all the weight. It’s the pin or flange on the knuckle of the hinge physically rubbing metal on metal.
On a regular basis I am asked to hang doors. Often the customer informs me that they have the doors and all the ‘furniture’ (hinges, handles, locks etc.). At the moment oak veneered doors seem to be in vogue. These doors weigh 25kg plus, then you have to consider that the latches and levers or handles add another 2-4kg. The customer can easily have parted with £150-£200 for each door set, but no consideration has been given to the hinges, and more often than not the cheapest are purchased as long as they are the right colour/finish. Those cheap hinges come with screws that I put straight in the bin as they sit proud of the hinge leaf, causing binding which in turn causes the screws to eventually pull out.
So without getting too pedantic about hinges, if time is spent ensuring that the correct grade hinge is used there will be no future problems.
The most important things to consider are the weight of the door and the application. By application I mean is it in a light domestic situation? An office? A potentially high traffic area? Interior or exterior? Fire rated? If that’s the case, is there a door closure? If there is, add 25% to the door mass.
Hinge grades are from 1 to 14, grade 1 being the lightest and grade 14 the heaviest.
The most common ones available are grades 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13. I personally would not use anything under a 5, even for light weight interior panelled doors.
Grade 7: Max door weight 40kg tested to 200,000 cycles (opening and closing a door)
Grade 9: Max door weight 60kg tested to 25,000 cycles
Grade 11: Max door weight 80kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Grade 12: Max door weight 100kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Grade 13: Max door weight 120 kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Also consider that hinges come with or without washers, or with bearings on some of the higher grades. For the door example above, that is a 25-30kg set (door and furniture), I would normally use a grade 7 washered hinge, and as it is an internal door a 75mm hinge x 3 per door would be employed.
If you really want to get into this subject there is a British Standard no.EN1965 that covers the subject comprehensively but I can think of better things to do!
Incidentally there is a patron Saint of hinges called Cardea who in Roman times was celebrated on the 1st of June.
Wood grotto made from 10,000 tree samples
A captivating new piece of public artwork, made from 10,000 tree samples gathered from across the world, has been unveiled by the University of Bristol.
The intricate structure, called Hollow, is located in Royal Fort Gardens and represents the planet’s history and evolution through time.
Hollow was commissioned to mark the opening of the University’s £56.5million Life Sciences building and is produced by Bristol-based public art producers, Situations.
It took the artist Katie Paterson three years to amass the samples, many of which have been donated by private collectors, arboretums and botanic gardens across the world.
Thoughts on a plywood door
If Art is an enhancement of the everyday is this door Art?
Feel the surface of the wood and breathe in the smell of wood. Follow the grain of the wood, the imperfections, the differing tones in the colour and experience the pleasure that comes from noticing these things. Feel that strangely soft surface with your hands; the soft fuzz not yet flattened by the varnish to come – like the soft facial fuzz of your skin; consider the colour and its variations; become aware of the structure of its build, the line of screw heads that mark out the frame that lies between the skin of the ply. Let the size of the hinges hint at the weight they hold. The hinges are magnificent, they are large, their beautiful throat is large. They make their own statement. The rectangular handle in satin steel complements the hinges. Notice the height of the handle. It is not set at regulation height and you must consciously raise your arm a little in order to use it. Perhaps it positions you differently in relation to the door, reminding you that a door is a tactile thing.
Having decided to replace an internal door it was important to me that the new door reflect thoughts I have about the house I live in. This house is 1970s ex council, small and not as solid as earlier models. The ground floor of the house had been altered and is now open plan. This led to thinking about the construction of the whole. How some features seem a little mean, like the cavity walls that were built just slightly narrower than would accommodate insulation. See this in contrast to the staircase, which is solid and generous. The internal doors however are merely functional and carry an overall feeling of lack of care, of being unnoticed. These doors are mass produced, inexpensive and, although adequate, perhaps easily damaged. This is evidenced by one door upstairs that shows the mark of a boot. I suspect a little violence in its history.
Should not an object that is as important to the life of a house as a door deserve better? Artists, architects, designers, have always considered our environment, questioning how we use or abuse it. Art and life are inextricably linked; think of the arts and craft movement, de Stijl and the Bauhaus. Modernist architects, like them or not, were also interested in developing the spaces we live in, mixing art and life. An internal door in the house le Corbusier designed for himself was tall and wide, a part of the whole wall as well as an opening. And now the new turner prizewinners, Assemble, a cross-disciplinary collective of artists, designers and architects, who have won a major art prize yet do not consider themselves artists. Or are they? Everyone mixing art and life.
The places we live in speak of who we are, what we care about, and a door, it seemed to me, could have a story to tell.
So; the door. Made, built, constructed by a craftsman. A carpenter, someone who loves wood, knows wood, knows how to build, to make, to construct a door. A hands-on skill. All this feeds into the story. Examine this door and it will tell you more. You will see how it was made and what it was made of. It was made of plywood. Plywood is a basic economic and ecological material, it shows its structure and you can see the layers that attest to how it was made. It is ‘everyday’, has many uses and comes in different grades. It is unassuming, unpretentious and beautiful. To have a door that revealed how it was made, made of a wood that revealed how it was made, fitted in with the wider concept of the house as structure revealed, the house as installation, and the house as function. The house as a site for art.
A pencil mark notes where measurement was made. A kink in the frame will mark the point of a knot in the wood. Being able to read how this door was constructed adds to the pleasure of this functional object. The outer edge of the softwood frame is visible when you open the door, so too are the layers of 12 mm plywood either side of the frame. Three layers to each sheet of ply thereby marking its own construction. Screw heads testify to the structure of the hidden part of the frame where they fix the plywood outer skin to the pine frame within. A visual reference connecting this modern door to doors in time past. The ‘threshold’ lies at the top of the door along the ceiling mirroring the ‘threshold’ and the door on the floor above. The ground floor flows uninterrupted beneath the door.
This door is not the readymade of Duchamp that is taken out of its original context in order to see it differently or to question what art is. It is the desire to value the everyday object – a strong theme throughout the story of contemporary art – and in turn to value and think differently about the places and spaces we inhabit. This door is connected to ideas of art and architecture and the sheer pleasure to be had in a well-crafted functional object in everyday use.
The aesthetic comes from the materials used and the function of the object; from following the theme of construction and functionality, from valuing skill, craft and the ecological aspect of materials. If art is an enhancement of the everyday then for me this door is art.
Helen Marland February 2016
Draught proofing
Proofing Sash Windows
Sash windows can be draughty, particularly older examples. In fact the total amount of escape of heat around a box sash window is equivalent to having a hole about 4” square to the outside world. Fitting double glazing alone, if its possible (and usually its not), will not materially make any difference when it comes to draughts or saving heat escaping. Even if double glazing can be fitted, the units may blow and fill with condensation, thus any financial gain will be lost when you have to replace them. Most new plastic window guarantees do not usually include the double glazed units for that very reason.
The answer is to improve the existing sash windows by replacing the staff and parting beads with new timber beads that have a brush pile fitted into pre cut grooves. There are other benefits beside proofing against draughts: there will be the reduction of outside noise migrating into your home and the elimination of rattle. If you add thick curtains, which really do work, then you can be assured of a snug, warm home without desecrating the appearance of a period-windowed property.
So how do I draught and rattle proof those sash windows, with the added benefit of sound reduction? To begin with, I remove the two sashes and fit replacement cords. It’s good practice to do this at the same time rather than reuse old cords. Often they may look fine and certainly work alright, but UV light will have weakened the section of the cord that is exposed to light. Cords, particularly the unwaxed ones often fitted in older windows, are prone to this weakening. At the same time I check the putty. If this is cracked, or has parted from the glass, it needs to be raked out and replaced. Putty that has failed is the number one cause of rot in wooden windows.
Once these two items have been attended to, the next thing to do is to machine out a 2mm groove on the meeting rail (the bottom rail of the top sash and the top rail of the bottom sash), and also to machine out a 2mm groove on the bottom rail that sits directly onto the cill. Into this groove a flexible seal is inserted. At this point I assess the gap between the edge of the window and the box; if this is slack then further grooves are machined along the edge of the window – the stiles – and a brush seal inserted. Finally, parting beads with pre-machined brush seals are fitted, reversing them at the meeting rail so that the brush sits against the face of each window. The staff beads with pre-machined brush seals are then fitted. The parting and staff beads are timber; plastic ones are available but they don’t quite look right.
Proofing Casement Windows.
The above mentioned issues with sash windows are common with casement windows as well. Modern (and by that I mean post 1970s) casements are often already fitted with an ‘aqua’ seal or at least the remnants of one. Often I see these windows with the groove machined to accept the seal but no seal. If it is the case that there is either no seal or a degraded one, then a replacement can be fitted without too much effort. If this is not the case, such as for pre 1970s casements, then a replacement window stop will need to be fitted, with the appropriate groove machined and the seal inserted. I can copy most mouldings found on window joinery so there should be no material difference between your old stops and replacement ones, although you will need to paint them. This may be important on period buildings, and insisted upon for listed buildings, or you may wish to simply keep the visual appearance the same.
At the same time as undertaking this work, I check the putty for defects and I also check the throat that should run around the whole casement. Often it is full of paint or missing. I have mentioned throating in another article on this website, but simply put its job is to prevent water sitting between the window and cill, which results in rot, and to prevent water being blown in during wet and windy weather. It’s simply a groove around 5mm wide and 3mm deep. The seal itself is available in white or brown and closes any gaps between 1 and 5mm.
Doors.
Often I am asked to fit a replacement exterior door, usually the main entrance or back door, but sometimes full sets of French doors, because ‘this one is draughty’. The door itself is often perfectly adequate and in good condition. To reduce and possibly eliminate draughts, and therefore heat loss, one starts with the door frame. A brush seal is fitted to the frame which will close the gap between the door and the frame stops, not only reducing heat loss but also eliminating the daylight that you can often see along the edge of the door when it is closed, particularly on sunny days. A brush seal along the bottom of the door has the same effect. If the door stops are nailed or screwed onto the frame, these can be removed and replacement stops fitted, with a ‘aqua’ seal inserted into a machined-out groove, much the same as for casement windows as mentioned earlier. If the stops are part of the frame, and this is usually the case, then a groove can be machined around the edges of the door instead and a brush pile inserted – the same method that is employed in weather sealing box sash windows. This brush pile sits proud by about 1.5mm to 3mm. A combination of exterior draught excluder, brush pile or ‘aqua’, and bottom brush will have a massive impact on heat loss and reduce considerably noise from outside. A final weapon in the tool box is a letter plate draught excluder fitted over the letter plate aperture on the inside of the door.
So all in all, if you are fortunate enough to live in a property which has retained its original ‘pre-plastic’ windows and doors, it is not inevitable that you have to suffer draughts and high heating bills.
Hampshire Joinery.com
About HampshireJoinery.com
Joinery is the art of cutting out, dressing, uniting and framing wood for the external and internal finishing’s of buildings. It has been broadly distinguished from carpentry by this, that while the work of the carpenter cannot be removed without affecting the stability of a structure, the work of a joiner may. The labours of a carpenter give strength to a building; those of a joiner render it fit for habitation.
In joinery the parts are nicely adjusted, and the surfaces exhibited to the eye are carefully smoothed.
The goodness of the work of the joiner depends first on the perfect seasoning of the materials, and second, on the care of the operator. All surfaces must be perfectly out of winding and smooth. The stuff must be square, the mouldings true and regular, and all must be so fixed as to bring out the beauty of the wood. The moving parts must work with ease and freedom. From The Carpenter & Joiners Assistant 1860.
Commissioning:
A good piece of furniture or a successful project is the result of a discussion between me the craftsman-designer and you the client.
Sometimes it is a vague idea or a ‘picture in your minds eye’, or perhaps you have a precise design. Often a provisional design is arrived at based on sketches or images from the web or magazines and the exchange of ‘what about’ ideas.
Measurements are taken.
Once a final design is agreed, a drawing and an estimate are worked out, and finally terms and delivery are agreed.
