24 Jun 2008

Stuck


These photos – and this project – have been sitting around for a week and a half or more. When opening this lovely window to look at the underside of the bottom sash I apparently raised it too far and now it won’t close. The top of the sash – maybe even the rope tie point – is past the inset wheel in the frame, and I’m pretty sure what’s happened is that the rope has come off the wheel. My friend Hans examined the window at some length and noticed that the rope appears slack in the crevice between the side of the sash and the frame, and goes even more slack when we raise the sash further. Between that and the feel of where the sash catches when we try and move it, I think the rope-off-wheel theory is sound enough to test.

CIMG4416
So the current plan is to lift up the counterweights enough to create some slack on both sides of the wheel, then attempt to fish around from the top of the sash with a heavy paper clip or some similar hook and try and catch the top of the rope loop, lift it, and guide it back on the wheel.

CIMG4417

Option 2 is to get a Dremel (I’ve been thinking about buying one anyway) and saw a square through the plaster and two or three of the lathe boards underneath up towards the top of the channel where the wheel is. This would, in theory, let me reach right in and do the same thing as above but without trying to imitate Huck Finn.

And in other news, these two nails just do not want to come out of the rosette:
CIMG4419

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  1. #1 by textiler on 6 July 2008 - 12:06 am

    Hey Aaron, we have a Dremel tool you could borrow! Hardly ever use it.

    rebecca & randy

    only, if you get good at fixing window sashes we may need to hire you to come over and fix the broken ones in “our” 1893 house!

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