Building Panes


 Above are the four panes I built from scratch to fit the weird sized opening. As it turned out, they were neither very time saving or cheap. Evidently acrylic prices have spiked thanks to Covid and unlike lumber prices, they haven't come down much. Also, in the midst of this build, I opted to get my Covid booster and flu shot and suffered a bit for a couple days. But I persevered and got the windows built. They are waiting for glue to dry, need caulking and then I can hopefully work to install them in the next day or so. 


To make the frames, I started out with some select grade studs so they weren't especially crooked or knotty like building grade studs are.  It took me about an hour of table saw work to cut the geometry on them the first time, and another half hour later on when I realized I was two pieces short for my windows, after painting them all. So I ended up with another day of delay in their cutting, painting, and sizing the final two pieces I needed. At least this is one of those mistakes nobody can see when everything is done.

Below is a closeup showing my simple window frame geometry. The beveled side will case out and has a small relief cut into it for caulking to be applied to make these more or less water proof.  I just cut the pieces with a bevel on each end and wood glue. Normally this is considered a weak joint and if I were shipping these across the country, I would reinforce it but since it is just going to be carried down the hill and inserted into a rough opening where it should never see any stress for the remainder of it's life, I forwent the reinforcing of the corners. The wood glue should be enough to get it in place where I will screw is securely to the surroundings.



Comments

  1. Sounds like you are going to be doing a lot of screwing Ed!

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    1. On this particular job, I did. Mostly though I've been nailing.

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    1. The shots were well worth the effort though.

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  3. Very impressive Ed. Curious: Did you price fully assembled windows against your costs? I am curious what the differential would be (the time, of course, is as you say)

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    1. These windows probably cost about a third of the off the shelf windows I bought all in since I was using leftover paint and had half a sheet of acrylic left over. Had it been more efficient use of acrylic, it could have been about a fourth the cost. But with the effort of building them and installing them included, it was much costlier than I had thought. One must also consider that if I had ordered windows for such odd sizes, it would have been two or three times the cost of what I paid for off the shelf windows. The lesson is that had I realized all of this ahead of time, I probably would have just designed things for all off the shelf windows.

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    2. That always seems to be the way in that next time, we always know more.

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  4. You sure can do things from scratch, Ed... so which of the vaccines did you get as a booster? Like you, I got my booster & flu shot Tues morning and it took a couple days to be myself again. I don't get how some aren't affected.

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    1. I had Pfizer the first two times and Pfizer the for the booster. As far as achiness went, the third time was the best of all. This time however, I had a slight fever and chills for about half a day, something I didn't get with the first doses.

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  5. I'm impressed you're able to cut out those frames on a table saw... I would have thought you would have used a router or other speciality equipment.

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    1. I could have done them with a router but it takes a fair amount of time to do all the bit changes and it spits sawdust everywhere. With the tablesaw, all the debris goes straight down into a pile and I can make adjustments in seconds versus several minutes. The drawback of course is that my geometry on the tablesaw is very very basic.

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  6. The third shot knocked me out for 12 hours also. Pfizer? I didn't have much if any reaction to the first two, so I was surprised. It's very clever how you problem solve and use your math/engineering skills to make things work.

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    1. Pfizer for me as well and this third dose affected me differently as well. I always had body aches the first two doses and was just tired. This time I didn't have the body aches and wasn't tired but had a slight fever and chills for half a day.

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  7. It seems that everything costs more these days. Yet "they" were saying there is no inflation for the longest time. Surely "they" have changed their tune by now.

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    1. I was listening to a program on this topic yesterday. Seems like this will be here for a while, well into next year. I'm fortunate that I'm not a big consumer and really only notice it getting groceries but I imagine for some, it is really painful after decades of low inflation.

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  8. Whoa. You have a really nice shop there. And great work in progress!

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    1. A dirty disorganized shop right now in need of a good cleaning. When I get the garden stuff moved out to the greenhouse, I plan to do some more organizing.

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  9. You are adventerous doing your own windows!

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  10. It seems like it's becoming less and less economical to make custom items. I think for your greenhouse it will be worth it though. The benefit you reap will make it so!

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    1. It should have crossed my mind with acrylic panels erected everywhere but alas, it did not. I almost passed out when I saw the price. My pre-pandemic brain is still stuck in first gear I guess.

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  11. It's wonderful that you have the tools, space and know how to get this all done. So many things are expensive or just not available. We wanted gray vinyl fencing installed and our contractor says he doesn't think it'll be available until next year.

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