Cavendish Hardware - More shelves and more stock.

We found that after doing an exhibition, enquiries would come in thick and fast for a week or two and then calm down a little, meaning our poor old fax machine was running at full tilt. Hard to believe now but back then, the fax machine was the way to go and emails came in now and again. No smart phones back then, just lots of phone calls and faxes!

So, to satisfy all of these new found customers, more shelves were constructed and more stock was put onto them. These shots were taken some time ago but illustrates that at that time, no shelf space was wasted!!!

Things have moved around a lots since then and not long after, we added a further 70 square metres of shelving - 96 shelves, in total - I know there are 96, as I have just counted them!!

It didn't stop there - not long after that came over a hundred Tote Tins and the racking to hold them - we were fast running out of space and still the fax machine was churning out more enquiries and orders.

We still have a fax machine! So, if you have one and you want to feel all "nostalgic", you can send us a fax!

The fax machine is on: 0116 2461545 . . . . I'll go and stand by it now!!

More common routes to find us these days are phone: 0116 2742195 or ping us an email at: sales@cavendish-hardware.co.uk

Cavendish Story Part 10

Cavendish Hardware - The Shows and Exhibitions.

At about 15 years ago, we started to do some shows and exhibitions - Architectural shows, that sort of thing.

We then got the opportunity to do Glassex, which was our first really big show, where we first met many of the customers that still use our services to this day.

We found these shows very useful, as we got to meet contractors, architects, people from housing associations, health care, education, universities and many one man/two men companies that went on to grow into bigger companies, over the following years.

The very last one we did was a long time ago but we still get people saying that they remember meeting us at the shows.

This is a shot from that show, where we were promoting the new Jackloc models and colours, as at that time, we were the first trade distributors for Jackloc. Jackloc has come a long way since then and are now selling their products all over the world.

The shows were hard work but a lot of fun and we got to meet a lot of the customers face to face, for the first time and show them all sorts of things that we could do for them.

I would like to say Hi to the readers of this blog - there is a little widget when you sign into Blogger, that tells you how many readers have read pages and today, just as I logged on, it rolled over to 500 page reads.
So, Hi - Thank you for visiting, there is loads more to come.

Cavendish Story Part 9

Cavendish Hardware - Purpose Made Parts.

After getting the ball rolling with standard parts for windows, we branched out into making parts for specific requirements and replicating items that had been dead for years, which we had been doing for a long time but only to supply our repair needs to "get the job done".

The images above show the first two jobs we did, a very long time ago, or so it seems!

After getting our feet under the table with one or two customers, we put the word around that if something was broken and it couldn't be got hold of, send it to us and we'll see what we can do and the jiffy bags started rolling in. On the back of that, many "designed from scratch" items were made, for whatever the requirement of the customer.

In a relatively short time, we were making all sorts of things, in various materials, for many different applications, on many different window types.

The image above shows some of the earlier parts we made, which I think is a good illustration of what can be achieved in Aluminium, Brass, Stainless Steel, Acetal and Nylon. The image is a little grainy, it was taken on our very first digital camera, which I still have and it still works, 18 years later!

Cavendish Story Part8 

Sash Window Springs, Sash Balances, Spiral Balances, Cord Balances, You name it!

Having had experience in repairing a lot of commercial vertical sliding sashes, it was only natural that Cavendish became known for solutions to the non-standard windows that were out there.

Alcan perhaps had the lead for variations at the time - they had Weatherguard, Clifton, Cabot and Cotham, all vertical sliding sashes, all with different fittings.

Crittall had had VSS in the early days and the later system had Kralasik guides, where the vertical rails would normally be, in the same way Warwick sashes had no side rails, only top and bottom rails on each sash, which confuse a lot of people when they first come across them.

This is the guide that Crittall used, this one being for 4mm glass and there is one for 3mm. Unfortunately, many of the 3mm were later glazed with 4.4mm laminate, which makes them very difficult to slide!!

So, we were now selling a lot of balances for Vertical Sliding Sashes, along with all the other parts that went to make the window work, such as dedicated balance shoes/feet, panel guides, fitch catches, brush pile and anything else needed to keep the sashes working properly.

We have ended up making balance feet/shoes for Planet Windows, Heywood Williams, Crittall, Alcan and several others, which means old balances can be pulled out and the new ones put back in, straight away. 

We also do parts for Kawneer, Monarch, Hinchcliffe,Warwick etc.

So, if you are looking for Sash Window Springs, Sash Balances, Spiral Balances, Cord Balances, Panel Guides, Catches Keeps, give us a call on 0116 2742195 or drop us a line with your enquiry at sales@cavendish-hardware.co.uk

Cavendish Story Part 7

Cavendish Hardware - The Begining.

Well, that is some of the history - there is so much more to tell and hundreds of images but for the time being that is enough of the reminiscing!

How did Cavendish Hardware start?

It was perhaps a case of being stuck on a job and not having the parts you needed at the time to finish it, that started the ball rolling.

So, it made sense to stock large amounts of items, that would not only benefit our repair company but many other repair companies, throughout the UK and that's how it all started, 20 odd years ago.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the first products we stocked in any amount, were Block & Tackle sash balances - BSI 100 Series, take out.

These had been favoured by Avdon, UBM, Ducana etc and a lot of the windows were of an age that balances were starting to fail.

In the early days, these were going out the door, almost every day, to far flung reaches of the UK.

We still carry several thousand of the 100 Series, as well as the tilt versions of the Block & Tackle Balances.

If you are looking for sash balances, of any type - please contact us on sales@cavendish-hardware.co.uk or good old fashioned Fax: 0116 2451545 or you can give us a call on 0116 2742195 or 0116 2741746.

Cavendish Story Part 6 

Gaining more experience - window repairs, glazing and swimming pools?

So. . . . many more jobs were carried out over the years and we were not only doing the usual sort of things - more often, the unusual.

There was still a large amount of steel window work - Schools, Colleges, Hospitals, Houses, Cottages - all sorts of different projects.

 

As well as all the usual projects, we got involved in re-cladding Clear Span buildings, that covered swimming pools -located at schools and colleges.

This involed buying Twinwall from the continent and extruding aluminium sections, which were the cappings.

They were a lot of work to do but the results were outstanding, a lot more light into the building and the heating costs dropped by quite an amount, as the heat was being retained by the Twinwall.

Never a dull moment and more experince gained in the world of window and door repairs.

Next time - Cavendish, the begining.

Cavendish Story Part 5 

Cavendish Hardware - The History, Continued.

Steel windows and specialist glazing were our bread and butter, during the early 1980's but as with everything that evolves, more and more work was carried out on Horizontal and Vertical Sliding Sashes, with one example being a whole estate of Horizontal Sashes.

This gave us a huge amount of experience on sliding sash windows which continues to the present, as it allows us to picture the issues that window repair engineers come across.

Some older aluminium VSS windows date back 60 odd years, with an increasing amount being fitted during the 1960's and 1970's, when their popularity gained momentum and were fitted in office blocks, schools and colleges, hospitals and many other buildings, during that period.

Companies that majored in this type window included Heywood Williams, Crittall, Percy Lane - Planet, Hinchcliffe, Archital Luxfer, Alcan, Kawneer and quite a few others that don't spring to mind at the moment
but I'm sure will do, later on in this blog.

The regular things that started to fail on them were the balances, panel guides, catches and keeps, so we were always kept busy repairing vertical sliders.

Could be a simple couple of pairs of wind-up spiral balances or if you were lucky - could be a whole building of pre-tensioned balances or block & tackle cord balances. I can honestly say that after a week or two on a job like this. . . . you were ready to move onto something else!!

There are still a huge amount of Vertical and Horizontal Sliding Sashes in circulation, some of which date back to the beginings of these systems in aluminium and are still being used today.

One of the first products that Cavendish stocked in large quantities were the Block & Tackle cord balances that were used on Avdon and several other manufacturers, who favoured that type of balance and today, we still carry large stocks of them.

So, if you are stuck with a problem on a VSS window - whatever it may be, give us a call on 0116 2742195 and we will do what we can for you.

Cavendish Story Part 4