Cleaning Glazing Compound from Stain Gla
Hey Folks,
I have become the proud entrusted care taker of a 100 year old door for my home office.
It’s a mortise and tenon pine door held together with wood pegs and has some lovely detailed trim with the upper 2/3 leaded stain glass squares separated with a series of wood framework intricately assembled without glue or nails. It’s quite an amazing work of skilled talent.
I’ve removed the stained glass and am carefully scraping and sanding the old door to bring it back to it’s original glory.
My Question: What is the best way to remove the glazing compound from the stained glass? I’ve heated and scraped older type clear smooth glazed windows before but never such delicate ornamental stained glass pieces. I would really hate to break one from the heat and pressure is not a good option while scraping because the glass is so uneven.
The glass pieces are about 4″ square so I could soak them in mineral spirits or something of that nature if that’ll work…….
OK so let’s have it……
Pedro the colorful Mule
Replies
Paint remover.
FWIW, I'm working through restoring a bunch of wood sash windows at my house. Nothing as historical or interesting as yours, though. I've been reading up over at the Historic Homeworks forum, and I've built a half-assed steam box to help strip the windows. It works pretty well for the glazing compound, less so for the umpteen layers of lead-based paint. For that, it's taking multiple applications of Smart Strip to get it all off. I tried a super-thick application of the stripper, and it still seems to only penetrate so far, even after 48 hr.s of contact time.
Thanks for the continuing ideas. I actually have the stained glass squares removed and sitting on the workbench so I can do most anything with them at this point.
Now, from your message, are you suggesting that the steam will soften the glazing compound?....If so filling my solar cooker with water and soaking the glass in it for several days might soften it enough.
Good luck on the paint....my door had never been painted nor stained....only a few coats of linseed oil over the last century. Its still taking some painstaking work to clean out all of the intricate details but nothing like it would have been if it had been painted.
I had an original mantel from one of the former govenors personal home....about 150 years old......milk paint, lead based enamel.....5 layers of stuff and all cracking from the first coat of milk based paint and chipping off the bare wood. I built a little sheet plastic basin to work in and used a brass wire brush to scrub the living daylights out of it. Once all the stuff came off that was going to willing do so, I coated it with 5 coats of oil based satin poly and mounted it over a non functioning red brick fireplace and left the morter intentionally rugged. Filled in the facing with real slate, top mounted a light inside the fake firebox and set a plant inside. Somewhere many years deep is a photo or two....might have to upload 'em one day.
Everybody that saw it loved it. No mistaking that it was very very old. I love being given things like this and being able to make it so special.....to me this is what "green" is all about once you make it to the interior. It was at a friends house leaning on the garage....he had picked it up at his dad's one day.....a man who knew his dad had dropped it off at his house on the way to the dump.....thus no one ever really made a special fossil fuel burning trip anywhere......simply picked it up on a dinner visit until it reached my home where it was reused with respect.
Pedro - an occasionally Green Mule
Unless the glazing is some sort of Kryptonite-based formulation, the steam does the thing. On Historic Homeworks, there's info on building a steam box for sashes out of Tuff-R (foil-faced foam board; my less-successful version uses pink Foamular, which kind of warps). If the glazing is in bad enough shape, you might be able to just use a handheld steamer to soften it. The advantage of the box is that you can walk away from it for the hour or so that it takes, and I suspect that the heat's more even (less chance of stress cracks).
I thought about suggesting running them in your dishwasher on hot, but that might gunk up the works.
The other advantage is that the lead-based stuff is less likely to go airborne when wet. Ditto on the wet stripper vs. wire brush (though I have many hours in getting the corrosion off the cast iron handrails on my front steps w/ a wire brush chucked into a drill).