I have some old windows from which I want to remove the hard linseed putty. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I could acheive this?

scraper and some turpentine?

Depends how long you have to do the job. My stash of old windows has been under a tarp through a few years of baking heat and heaps of snow. Tarp fell to pieces, add one summer of sun, rain and time…old putty has fallen out :D

wookiemeister said:

scraper and some turpentine?

Old putty tends to break away reasonably easily.. solvents just make a mess of it. The scraper should be good enough.. don’t forget to keep the small metal diamond shaped stays that hold the glass in. The scraper will knock these out and they’ll get lost if care isn’t taken.

roughbarked said:

wookiemeister said:

scraper and some turpentine?

Old putty tends to break away reasonably easily.. solvents just make a mess of it. The scraper should be good enough.. don’t forget to keep the small metal diamond shaped stays that hold the glass in. The scraper will knock these out and they’ll get lost if care isn’t taken.

you could probably just use liquid nails to hold the windows in. its relatively malleable and can be painted.

I ended up dismantling the windows as they are the subject of a re-build anyway. The glass came out in several large pieces. So far I have done two out of six. After knocking out enough putty with a chisel to locate the little triangles, I ran the pieces through the cheap Chinese router table ( that was the scary bit) to remove the final traces of putty.

You can’t buy the tool to put the little triangles in according to a local window place. They use silicone to stick the glass in these days. Once I get the frames re-built I might ask them to do the puttying. They do is so much better than I do, despite my best efforts.

I have some other in-situ windows that need to have the putty removed. I think I can set up a fence and use a trimmer to gouge out most of the putty. The glass is already broken so it doesn’t matter about that.

You can’t buy the tool to put the little triangles in according to a local window place.

tack hammer, square piece of metal you can use as a “punch”. long enough, about 100mm, to rest the bottom edge on the diamond and have the top edge far enough away from the glass, 10mm or so, to be able to hit with the hammer.

The glazier’s points sold by Bunnings are pieces of crap, probably out of China. They bend if you try to insert them in anything but melted butter. I think they have millions of starving children cutting up old Coke cans to make them.

you can use short brads to do the job. they are only to stop the pane falling out if the putty comes off.

Geoff D said:

The glazier’s points sold by Bunnings are pieces of crap, probably out of China. They bend if you try to insert them in anything but melted butter. I think they have millions of starving children cutting up old Coke cans to make them.

That’s why I said save the old ones. ;)

Geoff D said:

The glazier’s points sold by Bunnings are pieces of crap, probably out of China. They bend if you try to insert them in anything but melted butter. I think they have millions of starving children cutting up old Coke cans to make them.

Glaziers points. Ah, now at least I know what to ask for. The range at the local shop doesn’t extend that far.

Boris said:

You can’t buy the tool to put the little triangles in according to a local window place.

tack hammer, square piece of metal you can use as a “punch”. long enough, about 100mm, to rest the bottom edge on the diamond and have the top edge far enough away from the glass, 10mm or so, to be able to hit with the hammer.

Thanks Boris. I might give that a try if I can get some points. Otherwise I think I will just stay with the silicone.

roughbarked said:

Geoff D said:

The glazier’s points sold by Bunnings are pieces of crap, probably out of China. They bend if you try to insert them in anything but melted butter. I think they have millions of starving children cutting up old Coke cans to make them.

That’s why I said save the old ones. ;)

I suppose I could cut up an old saw blade and make some out of the spring steel.

I have (long time ago) just positioned the point in the timber with a pair of pliers, then slid the tack-hamer along the glass to finish.

use 15mm brads. problem solved.

morrie said:

I ended up dismantling the windows as they are the subject of a re-build anyway. The glass came out in several large pieces. So far I have done two out of six. After knocking out enough putty with a chisel to locate the little triangles, I ran the pieces through the cheap Chinese router table ( that was the scary bit) to remove the final traces of putty.

You can’t buy the tool to put the little triangles in according to a local window place. They use silicone to stick the glass in these days. Once I get the frames re-built I might ask them to do the puttying. They do is so much better than I do, despite my best efforts.

I have some other in-situ windows that need to have the putty removed. I think I can set up a fence and use a trimmer to gouge out most of the putty. The glass is already broken so it doesn’t matter about that.

you normally use a wet finger to smooth down the silicone

Geoff D said:

The glazier’s points sold by Bunnings are pieces of crap, probably out of China. They bend if you try to insert them in anything but melted butter. I think they have millions of starving children cutting up old Coke cans to make them.

its why i want to start making my own tools

For the third window, I set up a fence about 40mm from the inside edge, set the trimmer at just the right depth so it would hit the points, and routed out the putty with a reverse spiral bit that I use for plastic. That left a little bit of putty to remove, but it wasn’t too bad using a chisel/scraper. I could get the points too.

This will be handy for the next set of windows, from which I need to retain the glass.

morrie said:

For the third window, I set up a fence about 40mm from the inside edge, set the trimmer at just the right depth so it would hit the points, and routed out the putty with a reverse spiral bit that I use for plastic. That left a little bit of putty to remove, but it wasn’t too bad using a chisel/scraper. I could get the points too.

This will be handy for the next set of windows, from which I need to retain the glass.

Would NOT hit the points.

Did you hear about the female glazier who couldn’t tell the difference between putty and Vaseline?

All her windows fell out.