1930s door renovation

[msmsm]

As a bit of project I have decided to restore a 1930s door that I have. The stained glass is in good condition but at some point the trim around the window was removed on the inside and replaced (badly) with putty.

The top of the window is a curved trim (s trim?). How were these originally made and are they possible to still buy and replace? Was it a straight trim steamed and curved or were they made curved out of a bigger piece of wood?

Any pointers would be great!

Thanks

 

[msmsm]

Looking at the door more it appears I will need to replace the entire top panel as the molding is cut into it, not added on as I first thought....

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The top of the window is a curved trim (s trim?). How were these originally made and are they possible to still buy and replace? Was it a straight trim steamed and curved or were they made curved out of a bigger piece of wood?

AFAIK by the 1930s pretty much all manufactured curved mouldings were produced by roughing out on a bandsaw (trying to minimise the short grain) then "sticking" on a jig and moulding (cutting the profile) on either a spindle moulder, an o warhead pin router or possibly something like a Rye moulder. Two jigs and two passes (with different cutters) would be required - one for the rear, the other for the front. This is because it is very difficult to steam bend small section profiles without either breaking the moulding or differing from distortion, twisting, etc. Whilst some timbers steam bend well (e.g. beech, ash etc) other species simply cannot be steam bent or are at least highly resistant to the process (e.g. most softwoods, poplar, etc). Similarly grain on woods to be bent and profiled in small sections needs to be fine grain )not fast grown stuff) and defect free (e.g. no knots, pips, cracks etc)

It may be possible to set up a pair of jigs, rough saw timber with a jigsaw and rout the required moulding. I did this for a series of site made porthole surrounds a few years back. The 400mm diameter potholes required 8 segments to avoid short grain