Window in progress, picture 1 (some length)
Bill Houghton, avoiding work in Sebastopol, CA
>Our new bathroom window is in, and LOML is quite pleased - it goes up and down easily, it's frosted glass so she doesn't have to say hi to the neighbors while using the bathroom, and it doesn't leak air like the old one. Installation has been the usual set of hassles in our old house, where nothing is ever as shown in the magazines (2x3 studs and previous window frame constructed unlike any I've ever seen before, both of which required me to cut down the window frame I'd carefully built, etc.), using my usual hybrid electron-death/sweat-of-brow techniques.
The main all-handtool-content part has been the crown. The pattern used on our house is bed molding (normally used, according to one website, "where walls and ceilings meet"). It's not a commonly available molding around here - last time I used any, well over a decade ago, I had to go to a guy who does specialized moldings out of his garage. This time, armed with a decade's more experience, I made it myself.
By great good luck, my one and only round base for the Stanley 45 happens to be the same curve as the hollow on the bed molding. So, the other afternoon, in about an hour's time, I free-handed a four foot section of molding using the No. 45 and No. 78 planes. After making each end of the stock with a bit of molding saved from the piece I bought ten years back, I started out cutting the reveal below the round part (which is the top - demonstrated in later pictures). I then cut the hollow before going back to cut the round by making successively smaller facets and finishing up with (yes, I cheated) sandpaper to fair the remaining little ridges. I planed the reveal at the bottom, and finished by flipping the stock over and planing the angles on the back.
The piece remaining after I installed the molding, below, will be more than enough to replace a missing return on another window.
