"Zootal" wrote in message
...

"Zootal" wrote in message
...
First of all, please don't laugh at me - I admit to being n00bish

This question is directed primarily to those with experience glazing
windows with DAP 33.

I have a wood frame, and a 8x10 piece of glass. The rabbet is 1/4 inch.
I
lay down a small bead of putty (DAP 33) into the rabbet. I press the
glass
into it. So far so good, looks good. Fits nicely. I install a glazier
point in the middle of each side, four total.

Now for the fun part. I get a nice glob of putty, roll it into a ball,
warm it a bit with my hands, roll it into a rope and press it into the
groove. I take my putty knife, and try to run it along the grove to make
a
nice flat surface. I'm finding that no matter how I do this, the knife
pulls the putty and I don't get a smooth surface.

I watched a video of someone doing this, and he made it look real easy.
Bah.... I tried a plastic putty knife, a metal putty knife, plastic
caulk
smoothing gizmo that is supposed to MAKE CAULKING EASY ONLY $19.99
(actually cost about three bucks) and same problem. It pulls the putty
and
I don't get a smooth finish. Hold knife flat, angle it up, etc. Pulls
putty.

So - what am I missing? What is the trick to doing this with DAP 33 so
that you get a nice smooth finish? Warm it? Cool it? Mix in some linseed
oil? This can't be that difficult....


Thanks, everyone. The dastardly deed has been done . I ended up using a
1"
wood chisel because I didn't like any of my putty knives, and I liked the
feel of the chisel. I dipped the tip of it in linseed oil (gotta get some
mineral spirits...), and was able to get a fairly nice edge with a bit of
practice. I don't know what fresh DAP 33 is supposed to be like. This
stuff
seemed to me to be fairly soft and sticky, and even warmed up I couldn't
get
a nice edge. I guess I needed the right tool and a bit of practice (and
some
advice from people here). The first pane took an hour or two...I must have
ripped the putty out and redid it 3 or 4 times. The second pane was about
20
minutes, the third pane about 10 minutes. Funny how that works.



Some suggestions for the future. After you get the frame cleared our and
down to bare wood, rub some linseed oil into the wood.

Glazing points are cheap. I usually put one near the corner on each side
and then at least one every 6 inches.

As you noted there is a learning curve in knifing in the putty and making it
pretty. I have seen glazers stroke in putty about as fast as they could
move the knife.

Give the putty a week or two to skin over and then give it a coat of oil
based primer to seal being sure to leave a bead of paint on the glass and on
the wood frame.

Just before you are going to give the window the color coat, you can razor
trim the primer right to the edge of the putty, just be sure the color coat
gets a small bead of paint on the glass. Don't worry too much about paint
on the glass if you slip with the brush, the razor works fine for the first
week to trim the paint away just be sure to leave about 1/32nd of an inch of
paint on the glass.

Thanks for the after action report.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.