Window shutter hardware

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In its earliest forms, most hardware was simple and hand-made – usually of readily available materials such as wood or leather. A patch of leather spanning between the stile and jamb and fastened with wooden pegs served to hinge a door or shutter. Hand-carved wooden hinges and pintles, slide bolts and lift-latches were whittled from a variety of woods.

The earliest examples of iron hardware were sponsored by the nobility.^{[citation needed]} Iron itself was expensive and a valued resource for any kingdom and had many other more valuable uses in weaponry and tools.

In the post-Renaissance period industrial advances provided more iron and the emerging merchant/tradesman classes had money to purchase hardware for their homes and warehouses. Examples of hardware excavated from the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies of the 17th century were very ornate in design – typical of that being produced in England at the time. ^{[citation needed]}

In Colonial America, hardware was made in England and imported to the colonies. It was illegal for the colonials to produce manufactured goods.^{[citation needed]} America sold iron and charcoal to the British, who used those raw materials and their resident labor force to produce hardware which was then sold back to the captive market in the colonies. Virtually all of the early hardware in New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Alexandria, Key West, or anyplace else where British ships could berth, was made in England. Away from the ports and cities where British authority was centered, many locally made examples of early hardware can be found. Examples of German, French, and Dutch hardware remain in the inland river valleys – the homelands of the early settlers. English hardware, however, was the overwhelming standard in colonial America and set the pattern for all that evolved.^{[citation needed]}

Virtually all of the shutters in colonial times were hung with strap hinges – following the examples in Britain. Strap hinges were strong and secure. The frames of windows were hewn from a single heavy piece of wood into which a heavy pintle could be driven. The rails of the shutter were often six or eight inches high and provided room to position the strap hinge across most of the width of the shutter. The hinges were fastened to the shutters with rivets or nails driven through and clinched on the inside of the closed shutter. Locks of the period followed the form of the strap hinges. The rolled barrel was replaced by a pin of about 1⁄2" in diameter and twice the length of the thickness of the shutter mounted perpendicular to the face of the lock. The lock would be nailed or riveted on the lock rail of one shutter with the pin positioned about two inches beyond the edge of the shutter. The opposite shutter would be drilled through with a hole to accept the pin protruding from the lock.

To close and secure the shutter: from the inside close the shutter with the hole then close the shutter with the lock. The lock pin passes through the hole and the user drops a simple nail-like key into the hole in the lock pin. The shutter is virtually impregnable from the exterior. ^{[citation needed]}

Tie-backs of the Colonial era were mostly of English origin and many were of the "Rattail" style. Variations are noted as different British manufacturers vied to produce a less expensive product. Inland, where local smiths were producing hardware on their own, a wide range of patterns have been noted.

Around 1750, colonial raw materials poured into the British Isles, and factories began to appear. The earlier hardware with its chiseled and filed details fast gave way to less expensive, but equally functional hardware of similar but unadorned design. H and HL hinges are a good example of this transition.^{[citation needed]}

After the American Revolution machines were invented to make screws and to produce rolled iron in thin sheets. By about 1800 cheap screws were readily available. Cast iron technology had long been available – now machine-made screws allowed such hardware to be economically mounted. Butt type hinges can be seen during this "Federal" Period (1800–1830) – but they quickly fell from favor, probably because they were subject to breakage.^{[citation needed]}

A more obvious change in the shutter hardware was noted in shutter bolts. The common slide plate and keeper style of bolt started to appear. It was simpler to fabricate and operate than the earlier "strap style lock". This bolt relied on both the new cheap fasteners and the readily available plate iron. This bolt also relied on machines and "dies." This form of shutter bolt has been made continually ever since.^{[citation needed]}

Strap hinges continued to dominate in the marketplace for hanging shutters. Drive pintles started to be replaced by similar pintles cut off and mounted on a piece of thin plate material and again fastened with the new screws. This is the precursor of the "plate pintle".^{[citation needed]}

Changes in construction have been noted in the same period. Structures were built with openings into which pre-fabricated windows were installed. The earliest examples date from around 1810 and used a variation on the strap hinge. Instead of mounting the pintle to the surface of the structure, a new form was designed. This pintle was a flat plate of about two inches high and notched to one half of its height and formed to a female barrel. Holes were punched in the side of the pintle, and it was screwed directly to the side of the window before the window was installed on the structure. The strap hinges were modified to match the new pintles and the hinge was of the same width as the pintle and notched to one half of its height. A pin to mate with the female pintle was welded in the hinge. Examples of this type proved to be very durable and were in regular and widespread use through the 1870s.

Often when the shutters were removed – usually in the 20th century – cast type pintles were hit with a hammer and broken off flush with the edge of the window. The shutters often found their way into the basements of the home to provide coal bins for newly installed central heat or were nailed up in the barn to partition off pig sties or calf pens. ^{[citation needed]}

Cast iron tie-backs became much more popular during the Federal period – usually mounted on arms extending from the window sills. The "Federal Shell" was the dominant pattern in this period.

The next major change in shutter hardware coincided with the American Civil War era. Heavy presses and punches were in use in factories around the country and a maturing rail transportation system opened inland areas for the products of the factories. Iron was the norm up until that time – steel had been expensive to produce. Hardware makers were quick to take advantage of this new material. They produced the first of the "butt" and "H" or "Parliament" style lift-off hinges. Quick and easy to produce and strong enough to hold heavy shutters, they found favor in the new construction of the period.

Around 1880 the first examples of "New York" style hardware appeared.^{[citation needed]} Plate steel elements were assembled by unskilled labor in sprawling factories. This hardware style evolved into the many imported forms seen today. It provided the ability to surface mount hinges and tie the wooden elements of the shutters together, and also allowed for smaller and less expensive window and shutter elements. About this time the first commercially produced "S" style tie-backs were seen – manufactured by Stanley Works in Connecticut. Historically an "S" is a very difficult form to forge. Stanley forged the first simple styles for commercial consumption but it wasn't until the 1930s that they started to stamp them.^{[citation needed]}