After the Civil War, weight-and-pulley counter balances made it possible to operate a sash window with the lift of a hand.Ĭonstruction methods and materials for residential window construction changed little for the next hundred years-despite various inventions that claimed to improve on the rope-and-pulley system. The thickness of window sash went from a variable 1¼” to a uniform 13⁄8″. Machine-blown cylinder glass became widely available near the end of the 19th century, about the same time that advances in millwork technology led to standardization in building components from door casements to interior colonnades. By late in that century, as glass became slightly more affordable, window panes grew larger and longer, and the proportions of the muntins more grew more graceful as well. Eighteenth-century muntins were thick with short and rounded ovolo mouldings. The shaped wood dividers called muntins that held the glass in place changed over time, too. ![]() The further back in time you go, the more expensive the glass and the smaller the window panes, or lights. ![]() As Steve Jordan writes in The Window Sash Bible, outfitting a house in 1750 or 1800 with windows was easily the most expensive component of construction. In an era before water-resistant glues, joints were secured with pegs and tightened with wedges. That means that the connecting joints, the tenons, extended completely through the adjoining stile or rail and were visible along sash edges. Building a window was challenging but low-tech, the task of highly skilled sash makers working with hand tools to compose a complex framework designed to hold individually cut panes of glass.Īll of the wood components-bottom and top rails, the vertical side rails called stiles, and the dividers known as muntins-were through-mortised. ![]() Before roughly 1850, the materials were simple: old-growth lumber, precious hand-blown glass, and linseed oil-based putty. The windows on historic homes are products of the materials and technology available at the time of construction. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases made through affiliate links.
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