Building oval casement windows

Sep 05, 2007 5 Replies

I need two for an upcoming new home. The custom window company wants $11,000 for two smallish windows. Tempting to tool up and tackle this one myself. Just the kind of mess I'd get myself in the middle of.



Thoughts?


-Dean glutton for punishment


Are there moldings involved?

If so, you will need some kind of molding machine and cutters. Not to mention a good bandsaw.

First thought is that surely there is _something_ standard from one of the major manufacturers that would suit?

Second is, sure you could build a standard casement window assuming you have a shaper or a router table w/ good router and the other necessary stuff to make the stock from like a bandsaw would be good for cutting the oval, etc. You can buy the window sash cutter sets for a couple hundred dollars or thereabouts, depending on how high quality you want to go.

As for the complexity, depends on just how elaborate you're talking and what your experience level/skill is. Then you have to consider the glazing -- for a new home you really don't want to use simply a single pane these days, in all likelihood, so you'll be back to having the double-pane made and that's probably not going to be cheap.

I don't recall the title, but Taunton Press published a book on window and door construction not terribly long ago. I don't have it but the flyer made it look pretty good.

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Dean H. wrote: | I need two for an upcoming new home. The custom window company | wants $11,000 for two smallish windows. Tempting to tool up and | tackle this one myself. Just the kind of mess I'd get myself in the | middle of. | | Thoughts?

From the hip: I have a CNC router that can precision machine oval/elliptical (inside and/or outside) templates that you can use with either a freehand router or table-mounted router for obscenely less than that. Contact me directly if I can be of help...

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

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Kewl idea, Morris. That would ease the burden significantly.

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Interesting stuff here:

Combine some of the techniques with Morris' CNC, and you might be a hero.

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