House in Progress Diary

J! You have to let me come help you with this project! Seriously! We need to learn this, too! We'd (and when I say "we" I mean "me") like to build some wood screens for that office Chris is using now. The room seriously needs ventilation.

Your Oak Park pals, Lisa, Chris, Angus, and Larry

I am guessing that you are going to make two frames that fit into the bottom section of the current storm. Then you take the glass one out and put in the screen one. So, wouldn't you possibly need to make the bottom section a little wider on all sides to fit the frame into?
I have the full storms which I take off and then have a screen, that is the size of the bottom sash, that has a grove which slides along a tounged board that runs up the side of the window on the outside. Its a little higher than the bottom sash. This board also acts as the stop for the storms when they are in place. It is sort of like the modern storm/screen windows just without the tracks. Unfortunately, I haven't mastered doing this from the inside yet. Good Luck.

Despite your detailed documentation, I'm still kinda foggy on what you want to do. Do you want to put a rabbet around the edge of the frame? If so, I think a table saw with a stacked dado would be easier than doing this with a router.

However, if you have a router table you could use a straight-cut bit sized according to how wide the rabbet needs to be. The reason I prefer a table saw for something like this is that a dado blade will be more forgiving than a router bit if it should hit a hidden nail.

Followup to my reply: if the rabbet is less than ~1/2" wide then I'd just get a cheap blade for the table saw and cut the rabbet in several passes. Then use a rabbeting plane to clean up the edge, if necessary. This way you're not going to sacrifice an expensive dado blade (or router bit) if it should hit a nail.

Am I missing something? Don't you want to rabbet the inside of wooden screen windows to accept storm panels-- or is it that you don't have the original wooden screens, only the storms?

I think you're asking for trouble by considering installing the storms inside out. As for the size of the router bit, you should make that decision after you know the size of the frame/flange you'll put around the edge of the storm glass. You will want to make the rabbet wide enough to hide the metal storm panel flange completely behind the wooden window frame. Cut depth for the router will be based on the thickness of your storm glazing and weatherstripping.

If you're concerned about how the storm panels will work with the tapered detail on the inside of the window frame, just bump up the dimensions of your storm glazing a bit (and likewise the width of the rabbet from the inside edge of the window frame) so that you create enough of a slot to hold your weatherstripping.

Irishgirl, you've nailed what I want to be able to do. The way that your storms and screens work is how mine work now. The are tremendously heavy and have to be removed/put back while balancing on a ladder. Even on the first floor. Not the safest or easiest job in the world.

Steve, I'm even more inexperienced with a table saw...more than my inexperience with a router. As in, I've only used one twice, in a high school shop class, to make a straight cut.

Anybody working with a table saw these days? Can I look over your shoulder?

Josh, we have 2 wooden screens that came with the house. But we have almost ALL of the storm windows. So I would have to rabbet the insides of the wooden storm windows that I am repairing/restoring to accept a vinyl framed storm and then a vinyl framed screen (depending upon the season). Does that make more sense?

This stuff is harder to explain online than I thought it would be!

Popular Mechanics website has pretty detailed instructions for how to build a wooden storm door with swapable screens/glass. They may be helpful to look at.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/how_to_central/home_clinic/1275581.html">http://www.popularmechanics.com/how_to_central/home_clinic/1275581.html">http://www.popularmechanics.com/how_to_central/home_clinic/1275581.html

JM, It sounds like you want to have screens/storms in the interior of your home. It is kinda hard to visualize even with all of your fantastic photos and graphics.

It is my opinion to leave the functionality of the windows as they are- the result of 100s of years of design and engineering. What would become of the existing rabbet on the outside?

Any way, to reengineer your windows you should use a rabbet bit with a bearing washer. The bearing washer follows the edge of the window frame and remove material as the router passes along. You can buy rabbet bits of varying widths and depths from Rockler, Woodworkers Supply or Home Depot. The catalogers will have the best selection. I would also suggest buying a bearing washer kit that comes with several sized bearings that you can swop into the rabbet bit. Smaller bearing washers cut a larger diameter than larger bearing washers. So with the right sized rabbet bit and bearing washer you can follow the straight edge of the window frame and remove material as needed.

BUT HERE IS THE BEST IDEA...

Go to the Chicago Park District Wood shop in Lincoln Park and bring one of your windows in. Steve, the instructor there will TELL YOU exactly how to do it, or various options you have to accomplish this. He will also SHOW YOU how to do it if you ask him nicely.

You could also go in to the shop (without officially signing up) and ask him for his opinion. And then you may want to sign up depending on what he says. Maybe it is a home project.

I am recommending the Lincoln Park woodshop because currently the Loyola Park woodshop on the North side of Chicago (Rogers Park) is being retooled and not yet fully operational. The cost of the woodshop in Lincoln Park is $40 for an entire quarter. Either way both Chicago Park District field houses offer cheap, low cost access to a complete commercial grade wood shop.

If you want to come over to our place with the window, I can take a look at it, but Steve (at the wood shop) has way more experience than I do.

I badgered my husband into making (only one old storm remaining) new storm windows/screen wooden frames in the swappable style last year. I'll see if I can pull some more information from him. Making the screens was painful, and I STILL haven't made the storms. I think with fiberglass screening it wouldn't have been as painful, but with a cat that pricks at the window screens, aluminum screening is the only option. Maybe I ought to start that house blog...

I have to disagree with Steve regarding the use of a table saw. For this job I would stick with the router. One key drawback of the table saw is that you cannot EASILY make rabbets that stop halfway through the workpiece. You don't want the rabbet/groove to go all the way to the edge of the wooden frame - it would be visible from the side. There are ways to stop the cut on the saw & finish digging out the rabbet with chisels, but this is cumbersome & potentially unsafe for a beginner.

There may be a simpler way to get to where you're going. From your pictures I suspect that the original frames are not a solid piece, but instead there is a piece of trim ( a "stop" to be exact) on the inside of the frame to hold the glass. You may be able to remove the stop & flip it around so the flat edge is on the interior and the beveled edge is on the exterior. You may break a few pieces, but a good lumberyard will have this in stock. Even if the stop is not a separate piece, I would consider using a router to "remove" it and then adding back a new separate stop. You could use a "flush trim" bit which has a roller bearing that would ride on the flat surface on the exterior of the frame where the glass usually inserts.

Hopefully some of this was clear. Good luck!

If you flip the windows around and they don't fit, would it not be easier to plane the edges of the frames so they do fit? If there is a gap around the edge you could shim it to fit by planing off enough wood to make room for the shims. You could use some of those spongey insulation strips instead of shims to reduce draughts around the edges.

I've been contemplating doing exactly this for a couple years. It always seems a really good idea as I'm on top of the ladder getting our 4' by 4.5' storm windows in and especially out. They're really heavy and awkward to work with. Then there's always something else that has to be done. It seems like a great "winter project" but of course the storms are already up by the time I'm looking for a winter project.

I've been thinking that the thing to do is build a template the size of the new opening I want to make in the storm and a top-bearing template bit to cut out the ogee on the inside of the window and leave a rabbet. The template would be a simple rectangular frame with some stops that would hold it square against two sides of the storm. The bearing of the pattern bit would ride against the inside of the template frame. Then I'd build a new frame for the old glass.

I'll bet that you'll get this done before I do so I'll get to learn from your success.

I recall somewhere, maybe one of the other houseblogs, seeing a post where someone saw old style wooden storms with the swapable bottom screen panel that some company made. We gotta find that post and see if you can get some info on how you can retrofit your existing to this type. Maybe by studying the comany information or technical specs. you can come up with a plan.

There is also a good article in Fine Homebuilding - #112, November 1997 -Making Storm Windows . You can buy a PDF online for $3.50. http://www.taunton.com. The article talks about wood choice(poplar) and joining(dowel). I am going to give it a try.