Shopsmith Forums

Time to cut the new sill pieces to length and install them.

I had already prepped the old window sill by filling the voids with thickened epoxy. I used System Three epoxy and silica filler from my local Woodcraft store, and was quite pleased with it. They have three different hardeners from which to choose, depending on how fast you want it to cure. The stuff is mixed in a 2:1 resin:hardener ratio, so I bought a quart of resin, a pint of the #2 (medium cure time) hardener, and two quarts of silica thickener. Total cost was about $75. That was enough to repair this window and two more less-needy ones, and I still have about a fourth of the epoxy left over.

Borrowing a page from Roamer46's book, I first wet out the bare wood with unthickened epoxy, using a disposable acid brush. It penetrated the wood surprisingly well (unlike the 5-minute variety that I'm accustomed to) forming a nice waterproof barrier. Then I added the silica thickener to the epoxy, and troweled the resulting paste into the voids, using a disposable wooden paint stirrer. The next morning, after the epoxy had cured, I ground down any high spots with a 60-grit sanding pad on my oscillating multi-tool, and also roughed up the low spots for better adhesion. Then where needed, I used both round and straight saw blades on the multi-tool to re-cut the grooves for the weatherstripping.

The last prep step was to apply and sand ordinary spackling compound, for smooth flat surfaces. Sorry, no pics of the prep stages, as I was in a major hurry to get this thing done.

After all the prep work, actually installing the new sill pieces was a breeze. For the sill plate, I wet out the edges of both the old sill and the replacement plate, stuck them together, and nailed the replacement plate down to the 2x4 underneath. The nose piece went on next using the same process, except it was simply clamped on while the epoxy cured.

The pic below shows the sill with the new pieces already installed and caulked. It was taken at 8:48 AM last Saturday. Notice the red & white tent in the background? My twins' high-school graduation party was scheduled to start at 3:00 PM that very day!
On went a quick coat of latex paint, despite the spackling compound still being a bit soft -- the humidity had been almost 100% overnight. Installing the new sashes took just a few minutes with some help from my son, and we were done by 1:30. Good as new, and ready for the big party, with 90 minutes to spare!

As this is supposed to be a tool review of sorts, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the star of this thread, my Mark V 520. Aside from using a multi-tool for surgery on the old window sill, and a chop saw to cut the new sill pieces to length, this entire project was done with my Shopsmith Mark V and SPT's (jointer & Pro planer). To put that in perspective, I could have had a whole workshop full of stand-alone tools, and still not have been able to mill that beveled glue joint. After owning the Mark V for over 5 years, it's versatility still amazes me.

In closing, I should point out that this project makes for a great cost-justification argument. I bought my Shopsmith equipment in excellent used condition. Tallying up the cost of every single piece of equipment that I used on this project, including the chop saw and the multi-tool, I have a total investment of about $2000. That's equal to the low end of the estimate I got for a complete window replacement. So all that woodworking equipment paid for itself on this one single project.

Dennis,

The finished project looks great. I enjoyed your thought processes on this project and finding ways to accomplish the different tasks. Great job and thanks for sharing.

Looks as good as anything you could have bought Dennis good job . like they say a tool is only as good as the person using it!

Looks great...

Great work ! Definitely a testament to the versatility of the machine.
Paul

Thanks for the kind words, guys. It wasn’t a project that I’d choose to do for the fun of it, but it did end well. Hopefully this thread will help someone with a similar problem someday, and perhaps even introduce a woodworker or two to some of the lesser-know benefits of owning a Shopsmith.

Well done, Dennis! And great use of the Shopsmith!

A true window sill hero!

A very fine and professional looking job. It could not have been done any better. Nice work!

I did this with a 10er years ago, not as complicated, old farmhouse basement windows; now I need to do much closer to your job at my camp only with a 510, hope mine look as good as yours when I finish. You did a very nice job on a p.i.t.a. Job!