Again, asking for advice from the brain trust

[wdfifteen]

I have my own ideas about these problems, but I am constantly amazed by the creativity of the PPOT brain trust, so I'm throwing these out there for comment.

MrsWD dragged home these two windows from somewhere. They are mildly curved (about a 3" bow). They are about 34x34 inches with 25 panes of beveled glass in each window. As you can see from the photos, the paint is in bad shape. What would be the best way to remove and restore the paint? Heat is fast and clean, but I'm afraid of cracking some of those pieces of beveled glass. Is chemical stripping the best option?





MrsWD wants to turn an area in front of our house into a flower garden. There is a DSL line buried in the area she wants me to dig up. Fine, I've located and exposed the wire, but after I'm done, what product is available to protect the wire so she doesn't cut it 2 years from now while planting some Creeping Charlie or whatever? The depth of the wire varies from 2 to 6 inches and it zigs and zags all over the place.

[flatbutt]

That paint looks old and thick and old. I'd say chemical. Can you see the condition of the wood?


As for the wire, can you excavate the wire and put into a conduit of some sort? Maybe PVC?

[unclebilly]

I am doing something similar to the wire. I trenched a gas line from my house to my shop last fall and forgot to run a cat 5 cable (it is a steel building so the wireless repeater is sub par). Since the soil in the trench has settled 4-6”, in going to run the cat 5. My electrician neighbor gave me enough wire to run 2 in case one gets buggered up. Your should run a spare cable too.

[Zeke]

Electric heat won't break the glass. You could overheat the glass using a torch (much faster). The reason glass breaks is a 'sudden' change of temp.

[Baz]

Whenever I install low voltage cable and I know it's in an area of potential damage, I slip it inside a section of schedule 40 PVC. Now the gray conduit (for electric) is schedule 80 - so that would be even better.

Sorry - no idea on the windows.

[MRM]

The windows are very old. They could easily be 100 or so, but they might be from the 1930s. They come from a time when windows were all made with all wood and small glass was cheaper to manufacture than big sheets of glass. That’s why you have so many individual panes. They’re called divided lights. These days large sheets of glass are cheap to manufacture but the labor to install small panes is expensive, so true divided light windows are expensive. Most divided light windows these days have interior frames pressed into the glass to make a “simulated” divided light.

So much for the history lesson. The point is that there Are layers upon layers of lead paint on those windows. The glass will be regular old fashioned glass. No tinting, low-e, double panes, tempting, etc. old fashioned window glass like we grew up with. It might break easily but it shouldn’t be too hard to replace the individual lights.

The problem is the wood. If any substantial part of the frame is rotten it’s going to be hard to repair without simply rebuilding another frame, complete with individual lights, and you reuse the old glass.

Sounds like a neat project. Let us know how you make out.

[wdfifteen]

^^
Thanks for the history lesson.
Whatever it gets used for will be decorative. The wood is OK - not good for an exterior window but good enough for her art project.

[serene911]

The wooden frames with the glass are going to be a headache to deal with. You can
strip the paint off the frames but the glass is held in with the old style putty. That putty
is long past its functional use. It has dried out and cracked to the extent that it will start
flaking away from the frame. I do custom leaded glass for a living and when I get called
in to repair broken glass in a leaded window, the repair can be dealt with. The pain in the
you know what is removing the existing putty that holds the window into those old style
frames and then re puttying it back in. If you can chip the putty out to remove the beveled
glass pieces they could be re used and leaded together to make a real window. You will spend more time trying to re furbish that frame than it is worth. Trust me on that. The bevels
look like they have a steep bevel angle. That is what makes them look great. Most of the new
bevels that come out of China and Korea are on thinner glass with a shallow bevel angle.
They are beveled but have no sparkle or prism effect. Cheap crap!!

[masraum]

I was going to respond with “Paging Zeke/Milt!!!” But he’s already chimed in. I suspect he’s forgotten more about this sort of work than the rest of us have ever known.

I’d put the wire in conduit or flexible conduit. That’s the best way to make sure that someone doesn’t stick a shovel through it that I can think of. You could probably also use PVC pipe with a slot cut in it on the underside.

[serene911]

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by serene911

That is gorgeous! No way we are looking for anything like that.

[serene911]

Appreciate the kind words! You might be surprised by how nice the bevels in your
existing wood frames clean up. What is taking away from them is the frame and built
up grime and film in the glass. Clean them up and you might revive the sparkle in
them. Like I said, they appear to have a steep bevel angle and that is what makes
the prism effect and sparkle happen.

[MRM]

If you haven’t had too much of a history lesson, that slight curve you mentioned is hard to do. It must have been custom built for its opening back in the day when all windows were made for the house and before there were standard sizes. They would have been expensive for their time and must have been in a very nice house. That’s why they’ve been kept for so long. They’ll look great in your wife’s project once you get them cleaned up.

[Gogar]

NO HEAT! Tried it with a heat gun and a scraper, with unfortunate results.

Can you find a place that will dip it? Spend a hundred bucks on the dip instead of new glass and heartache.

[look 171]

I can safely assume that the window will be painted again after the gunk comes off? What will be used for? An art piece for the garden?

From my previous life, when I was doing a bunch of restoration, this product was my friend. It can be shaped, sand, paint, stain, and depending on which product line you chose, its even structural. Let me introduce to you, my old friend, Abatron. https://www.abatron.com/product-category/wood-restoration-maintenance/ if wood has rotten away or need to add a chunk that's missing. This stuff aint no Bondo like some people think. Its not cheap. Amazon may carry it?

The US forestry uses it on repairs in their remote structures way out in the sticks. I uses it on my parent's 1929 Spanish to repair some of the structural pieces under the house because I was too lazy, and too costly to tear the house apart. Its been 10 years and it hasn't changed still solid as a rock.

Yep, Gogar is right, I would have it dipped.

[serene911]

One side of the opening where each of the individual glass bevels fit in is part
of the wood frame,usually routed. the other side is where the glass is set in.
that side has the glazing putty against the glass to secure the glass into the
frame. Even if you strip the frame by sanding or another method you will find
the glazing putty will start to flake out of the frame. The cracking on the putty
is where it is worn out and failing. If the frame was taken down to raw wood
a oscillating tool can be used to remove the putty around each bevel piece.
You can then use a modern caulk or small 1/4 round trim around each piece
if there is room. Either way it is a ton of work. That is why nobody has tackled
it before as well as why windows like this end up in salvage yards or garage
sales for cheap.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by serene911

One side of the opening where each of the individual glass bevels fit in is part
of the wood frame,usually routed. the other side is where the glass is set in.
that side has the glazing putty against the glass to secure the glass into the
frame. Even if you strip the frame by sanding or another method you will find
the glazing putty will start to flake out of the frame. The cracking on the putty
is where it is worn out and failing. If the frame was taken down to raw wood
a oscillating tool can be used to remove the putty around each bevel piece.
You can then use a modern caulk or small 1/4 round trim around each piece
if there is room. Either way it is a ton of work. That is why nobody has tackled
it before as well as why windows like this end up in salvage yards or garage
sales for cheap.

If you have the patient and want to come to LA, there's a ton of work doing just that, restoring old window that's are falling apart. I know a guy name Kevin K. He's has that market cornered because he calls himself something like old window doc and its on some type of historical reg. Just another young guy with lots of patient that know how to market to hipsters. I have seen his stuff. Windows that really should not go back into the frame get repaired with some glue or dowels, plug the holes and remove the putty, smear new and paint. He's able to make a damn good living doing it. My neighbor had it done. Within two years, the window sagged again. I finally got them some wooden windows. Issues went away for good. He charged them 400 bucks per window. If you count up all the windows, that's a lot of money.

[LWJ]

On the frames, repair rot with bondo. Really. I've done it to outstanding results. A bonus is the heat kills the fungus.

[cabmandone]

For the buried DSL line, you can buy a pvc sleeve with a slit in it to slide over the line. Since you'll probably end up replacing the glazing on those windows, chemical paint remover.

[rfuerst911sc]

I believe chemically stripping is your best bet , due to the age of the windows be careful it may be lead based paint . I believe " aircraft stripper " is still considered some of the strongest available over the counter . It has a nasty smell to it but it works . You will probably have to attack this in multiple coats . First coat put it on heavy , let it do its thing in a shaded area and then scrape with metal putty knife or scraper . Second coat you might get by with coarse steel wool as your scraper . At this point you can " spot strip " areas that are stubborn . At some point you will say " that looks good enough " and then you can start sanding .

If you also plan to R&R the glazing that would be next to tackle . As mentioned earlier electric heat is the way to go but you still have to be extra careful . Try to direct the heat to aprox. 1/2 the height of the glazing and up so more towards to wood frame . You will quickly get a feel for how long to hold the heat and then scrape with metal putty knife . You should uncover some type of push points that are holding the glass in , they can be stiff triangular wires or flat sheet style . I would NOT bother with those , if they are holding the glass in just re-glaze . Good luck with the project .