October

Hard to believe but once again, true!!

A call out to a property, with a window half hanging off - caught by the wind.

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Got there and it was obvious it was unoccupied,  a big To Let sign over the door, which was locked.

Rang the customer, who was a bit upset that he had to leave the comfort of his chair and he came down, to open the door.

He arrived looking a bit agitated and said "I thought you'd just climb through the window"!

We asked how were were going to get out when we had done the job.

"Same way"!

"How would we have locked it off, to prevent it getting broken again?"

"Dunno!"

Turns to camera. . . . Sigh!

September

I'm running behind on these a little!!

Here's a cracker!!

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This must happen every week!!

Something has been falling apart for some time, with no thought of having it looked at and then all of a sudden. . . . It's URGENT!

Many years ago, I attended a meeting in an office block, following a near fatality.
One of the ladies in the office had opened a tilt and turn in the tilt mode and the  top arm let go!
Bearing in mind this thing was the size of a door and double glazed!
Fortunately for her, to get to the handle she had to go between two filling cabinets and as it came crashing down, she ducked down between then, with the cabinets taking all the impact!
Very lucky!

Percy Lane Planet Blocks

As window systems get older and are replaced, the requirement for spares diminishes.

We used to make these in batches of several thousand but these days, the need for parts to repair Planet Windows, means we only run off several hundred.

We have just done a run and here are a few of them, straight from the workshop.
These fit onto Spiral Sash Balances.

Replica Brass Handles

We have just supplied these to a customer, with blank back plates, in order to fit onto some Edwardian frames, with leaded lights.

August.

The August excerpt from the calendar.


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Again, the picture tells it all - so many occasions that an engineer would turn up on site and the customer just wouldn't believe that the parts for their 100 year old window, were no longer available!!

We do actually have parts that date back over 150 years but the shelf seems to have more gaps in it, these days.

If you are looking for old window components, give us a call on 0116 2742195 - we may be able to help.

It's July!

July nearly slipped through the net!!

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The picture tells it all!!

Prestige offices, broken unit, 2nd floor up and we were asked to just sort out the glazing, as they had a "tower" they could provide access for us, up to the working area.

Well, if you could have seen it!!
I was more like something you would see on historical sketches of stonemasons, working on a church in the 12th century!!!
Lethal!
Needless to say, we didn't take up their offer and went back to fetch our own.
Never again!!

Cavendish - High Level Window Removal Device.

We have made so many things over the years - little things, simple things, weird things but none more of a challenge than this thing. . . . . . and another device, which I'll come to another day.

Cavendish Hardware had started to develop a name for solutions that you just couldn't get out of a box and this sort of happened almost from day one.

I'm going to list some of them up in date order but as this thing was at best, a "Challenge", I thought I would throw this into the ring at this stage, just to make it interesting.

This bit of kit sucked up almost all of my brain power! I was a bit like an old PC that you ask too much of!

"Not enough memory to carry out the required task"

"The Brief"

Local hospital - Leicester Royal Infirmary - High Level Windows. So far so good! Well, you would think so but then it continued.

To remove high level windows, in order to replace defective friction stays. Use of the cradle is not possible, as the insurance has become too excessive to make it viable and the cost of scaffolding out the building is too much to consider.

Not much of an ask?

Well, after much head scratching and pencil chewing and cutting and drilling and a whole host of other things that were involved, I came up with the WRD! Window Removal Device!

Not only did it have to do the job, it had to be able to go into a lift, move around corridors, move around tight spaces, work with false ceilings in place and do all of that, without fault!

It had to be able to support the weight of the sash, whilst the fixings were removed, then travel out, then rotate, then come all the way into the building - change one friction stay, rotate, change the other stay, rotate to the original position, travel out into what was effectively free-fall, rotate and then come back towards the building to re-secure the friction stays!

Still with me?

It had to work over all the floors and over a relatively short period of time - several weeks - in wards, offices, corridors, you name it.

After several meetings with Zurich Insurance, with some conditions, it was given the thumbs up by Zurich and by the inspecting engineer, who's words when he saw it operating the first time, low level, over a flat roof were "that is truly amazing"! 

At the end of the job, it had done over eighty windows. . . . . yes, 80 and still going strong!

All this without any physical lifting or manoeuvring by the operator - the device did all of that.

Was I proud of the achievement. . . . . you bet I was!

Affectionally known as R2D2, for obvious reasons - here he is, shown on the trials and collapsed down, in "compact mode"

That was 12 years ago - I'd never seen anything like it before and to date, I have never seen anything else that can do what R2D2 did.

Top Job - Thumbs Up!!