#Window putty repair free
#Window putty repair windows

Priming first also creates a protective barrier that will let the putty set up as it should. Obviously, it’s far easier to prime without concern of getting paint on the glass. I like to prime the sash before placing the glass, for several reasons. After I glued the strips in place and clamped them to cure, I planed and sanded them flush with the surrounding sash. I carefully cut them to size, but still needed to plane them a bit to get them to fit nice and snug. Then I cut filler strips from old salvaged pine I found in the attic. First I glued up any broken or split pieces that hadn’t come completely free.

#Window putty repair free

Once the entire sash was as free of paint as I could get it, I began to repair and rebuild sashes that had begun to more-or-less fall apart at the joints. Initial Repairįungal decay or dry rot indicates trouble.

With initial sanding complete, I used scraping tools and a heat gun where necessary on the remaining paint or putty caught in crevices on the decorative profiles. Additionally, the triangle sanding pad on the oscillating sanding setting allowed me to get right into the corners without doing any damage to the sash. The dust collection is excellent and the smaller, 90 cm head on the sander is absolutely perfect for this sort of intricate detail. Using a 10-gallon HEPA dust extractor in combination with a multi-mode random orbital sander (I used a Festool Rotex RO 90 with hard pad and 80-grit sandpaper), I was able to rip right through the remaining layers on the flat sections of the sash. Cut along the edge of the sash where it meets the trim.Īfter I’d removed the majority of the old putty and paint, I moved onto sanding. Use a utility knife to free sashes from multiple coats of paint.

#Window putty repair windows

Since my windows had not been restored for a very long time, I decidedly to remove them and work on them in my shop, one by one.īecause there’s no good way to score old paint on an exterior window, the author taped an oscillating tool to a pole and reached outside the window to make the cuts. Replacing sash cord is relatively easy ( see OHJ, June 2016), but stripping, repairing, and readying the sash for new glazing is the most labor-intensive aspect of window restoration. These eventualities call for different remedies. That is, until the windows are coated in layers of paint, the sash cords fail or are cut, the glazing putty hardens and pulls away, and wood begins to rot. With simple operation and built from old-growth wood, sash windows predate and defy the notion of built-in obsolescence. It’s a simple, functional system that works quite well and is easy to repair. When a sash is raised or lowered, the lead sash weights, attached to the sash by cords (or sometimes chains), travel up and down in the hollow channels, allowing the windows to stay open without any other props or stays. This straightforward style contains two sashes, an upper and lower, which are movable and counter-balanced by large weights that live in vertical cavities beyond the jambs of the window frame.

Our sash windows are common to 1880s-era houses, and to houses built about 50 years in either direction. Restoring wood sash windows isn’t difficult, but requires patience and plenty of elbow grease.

Now that I’m restoring my own windows, one of my goals is to save as many of the original panes of 130-year-old glass as possible. If any putty was left, I would warm it with a heat gun and chip it out-also at risk to the precious glass. At times the stripper would do so much damage to the wood that it warped, nearly ruining the sash.

Sometimes it would come right out, sometimes it would stick. After soaking the windows for hours in paint stripper, I’d then chip away any remaining putty. When I was 18, I spent a summer stripping painted glazing putty from hundreds of windows in what is now the Tudor Arms Hotel, built in Cleveland in 1933.