Minor Surgery :: A Dutchman Operation

A long time ago one of the small casements suffered inexplicable damage to its upper exterior corner. The wound had been painted over. More than once. While it was in the hospital I fixed it with a Dutchman. Minor surgery in the grand scheme.

 

 

These windows are made of old growth wood. Dry and stable with tight grain. Justifying my habit of saving odd bits of old wood (because “I might need it”) I had a piece that was a good match. Likely eastern yellow pine. I marked the edges of material to be removed, used the router table to do the dirty work then squared up the corner. 

 

 

Next was milling up the new patch making it ever so slightly proud on the outside facing edges. Titebond III wood glue. Some clamps and it was off for an overnight in the recovery ward.

 

 

The next day a little hand planning and sanding. 

Ready for prime time. Rather, primer paint.

 

Removing Old Paint and Glazing

 Restoring the almost hundred-year-old casement windows means vanquishing the old glazing putty, removing the glass, stripping the paint down to bare wood, sanding the wood smooth, repairing any defects, cleaning the glass then putting it all back together with new materials. It’s a tedious, time-consuming operation that most people tell me is noble. At least that’s what politely they say in front of me.

 

There’s a reason they don’t make them like this anymore. Simply put there isn’t enough old growth wood. A properly restored and maintained window will last another hundred years.

 

 

For softening old paint my preference is to use an infrared heater. I have two of them. For broad acre removal such as siding a Speedheater 1100s. For smaller, more focused tasks a Speedheater Cobra (pictured below). They’re made in Sweden. They heat paint quickly to a temperature that doesn’t release the toxic lead fumes. That doesn’t necessarily mean one needn’t wear a lead-certified respirator! Anyway, one of these IR gadgets and the right pull scraper makes for quick work.

 

My backup is a Wagner variable speed, variable temp heat gun (pictured above). The variability is a game changer for heat guns. I still count on it for the trickier situations. The low fan speed means less debris flying around.

 

 

Cleaning decades of old glazing putty and paint takes a good, long playlist. Or in my case, catalogs. Pink Floyd, Supertramp and The Waterboys got me through all 42 panes of glass; front and back. And lots of single edge razor blades. T’was about ten fun-loving hours over several days to get this part done. 

 

 

Far from finished. Stay tuned for more.

Rescuing Old Hinges

The casement hinges are your basic standard assembly, six screw, five-knuckle steel door/cabinet variety. They were made, most likely, 100 years ago at the Stanley Works in New Britain, CT. Some of them have the SW ‘sweetheart’ maker’s mark. The rest bear the words Stanley Works, USA.

 

 

Although the hinge leaves are steel, the pins are solid brass. Brass and steel are compatible. Brass doesn’t rust. Good for exterior. None of the pins put up much of a fight when I used a punch and small hammer to tap them out from the bottom. Likewise, the casements readily let go once the pins were out.

 

The hinge leaves were attached with #8 slotted zinc woodscrews. Naturally, the leaves on the windows were covered with multiple coats of exterior paint. Their mating leaves were protected by a strip of copper weather stripping. Those screws were mostly rusty. Fitting the heat gun with its focus attachment and relying mostly on the point of a utility knife blade, I was able to get most of the evil paint out of the clogged slots. With a well-fitting standard screwdriver, the extractions went well. To access the screws hidden under the weather stripping I used tin snips cutting just enough to gently bend the copper reveling the screws. The copper bends back in place well enough. The jury is still out on replacing all of the original copper with new. 

 

 

To safely remove the paint from the hinges, they stewed in a crockpot with some Dawn and baking soda. Although I started this operation on my workbench, there was some off gassing so the pot was relocated to the garage for the duration. The crockpot will never see food again.

 

 

Ten hours later the 26 hinge leaves were well done.

 

 

Now it was time for picking and brushing. Virtually all the paint scraped off easily. Soft like cream cheese. I bored out the hinge knuckles with a long, quarter-inch-wide wire brush fitted to a drill motor. From there it was back to the wire brushes on the buffer.

 

 

Two coats of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer and several coats of Satin Black enamel later they’re ready for another ninety years. The original zinc screws will be replaced with #8 slotted solid brass screws. I found an exact match at boltdepot.com.

Casement Hard Worn Hardware

After freeing the casements and laying them flat on the sawhorses the first order of business was to wrangle all the hardware. Latches, catches, hinges and pins. (More on the hinges in a separate post).

 

Much to my delight the latch hardware and hinge pins are solid brass. Alas, the hinges are steel. Nevertheless, the brass items cleaned up nicely. Wire wheels on the variable speed bench buffer did all the work. Here are some before and after shots.

 

A Case for Casements

In an unsurprising boneheaded move, before putting it on the market, the previous owners of our house replaced the original (c. 1936) double-hung sash windows with the least expensive vinyl-clad crap on the market. In under ten years they’re already failing. 

Remember. The “replacement” in replacement windows means they need replacement frequently. A lending agent once told me that most replacement windows don’t outlast the mortgage. Mind you, a fifteen-year mortgage.

 

Fortunately, there remain five legacy casement windows that did not get sent to the landfill. In April, I embarked on what I knew would be a long endeavor to bring these old soldiers back to life. When I started they were all painted shut.

 

There are two on the front face on either side of the front door. They are 3 x 2 (panes, or lights as they’re called). On the back side, three adjoining casements that are each 5 x 2.