Glazing is worth pain for these old panes
We were a whirlwind of activity during the heat of late spring and early summer — not by choice, but because we wanted to finish a big project before the Fourth of July holiday.
After nearly a month of rain, we completed the painting project we started during the week leading up to Memorial Day.
With help from our twin daughters, one of whom came home from New England for a friend’s wedding reception and found herself with a few hours for painting, we finished the front of our 149-year-old house a few days before the Independence Day festivities.
The biggest challenge in that project was the tedious process of chipping old glazing material from the 149-year-old windows and applying new glazing.
Glazing compound is a cross between cookie dough and cement. When fresh, it’s like cookie dough — gooey and pliable to a fault, especially when the outside temperature is
90 degrees-plus. (I find it much easier to work with glazing compound in early spring or fall, when the temps are in the high 60s.)
I have used so-called “glazing compound” products from a tube, made to be applied with a caulking gun, and they are caulk by another name. It’s not the same material as glazing compound, which is a little thicker in consistency than caulk and sets up in a much harder form. And therefore, glazing compound holds up better and lasts longer than the stuff from a caulking gun.
All of this means nothing to homeowners who have modern, vinyl-clad, doublepane windows with rubber or plastic gaskets to hold the glass in place. But there are still plenty of us old-house purists who want the look and feel of 1870.
That means that every decade or so, we need to repair or replace, and then paint, some of the glazing in our old windows.
In cooler temperatures, glazing compound is so thick that it can’t be applied until you warm it up in your hands. The directions suggest holding a ball of it between your palms and rolling it back and forth until it becomes like a limp rope. (Picture Play-doh being fashioned into a necklace or bracelet.)
We then place the “rope” between the window glass and pane and push it gently into place with an oldfashioned putty knife. We use the knife to push the glazing compound into the gap and pull the knife at an angle to make a nice, even line around the window. Any excess is as easily removed as Play-doh, and after the compound hardens, it can be painted.
That’s what Daughter No. 3 was doing the week before Independence Day. While Daughter No. 2 was painting window frames a story below, No. 3 was applying burnt-red paint (we call it “eyeliner” because it is the minimalist application of a third color that makes the details pop) to the window frames.
We tend to apply paint liberally to fill all the cracks and crevasses in these old windows, so when it dried, our daughter went back over each pane with a razor blade to remove excess paint.
And when it was done, we celebrated by putting furniture back on the front porch, putting our feet up and watching a red, white and blue world celebrate the holiday.
Alan D. Miller is a Dispatch editor who writes about old-house repair and historic preservation. amiller@dispatch.com @youroldhouse