Window Repair - Part 2

Having dealt with the bird in my fireplace (see previous post), and finished my coffee, I returned to the window repair job.

Step 8: Overcoat primer with 2 coats of outdoor paint. Unfortunately, it was raining outside, which made for less than ideal painting conditions.

Still, once the worst of the showers had cleared, I lightly sanded the metal primer, and applied a coat of outdoor paint. It was supposed to be touch dry in half an hour, and OK to paint over in 2 hours. However it wasn't touch dry for 1.5 hours (probably because of the rain and the resulting high humidity), so I wasn't able to put the second coat on until after lunch. Here is the result:

I waited until about 5 pm to let the top coat dry.

Step 9: Use Caulking gun to apply silicon sealer to window rim, then put glass in place. Press down to remove all bubble in sealer.
Step 10: Apply putty. I had done some research online, so I had some idea of what to do with the putty. It was a bit lumpy, so I kneaded it a bit until it was smooth (very much like kneading dough). I then took lumps, rolled them into strips and applied them to the window. The putty reminded me a lot of play dough to work with. Here's what it looked like:



Step 11: smooth down putty. Apparently putty is made up of calcite mixed with linseed oil, so it is recommended that the putty knife be wiped in linseed oil to stop it sticking to the putty. Apparently linseed oil is another name for flaxseed oil, which I had. So I wiped flaxseed oil onto the putty knife and got to smoothing. I think the end result was pretty OK. Probably not as good a glazier would have done, but not bad for a first try.


When the glazier sold me the glass and putty, he warned me to let the putty dry for a couple of weeks before painting over it. So it will be a couple of weeks before I can finish the job and paint the whole frame. Still, I am pretty happy with how it has turned out.