It also has a sheet of plywood with siding over it from the outside, so in essence, covered over.
There was also so much paint over the screws that I coudln't even get a screwdiver in there! I had to use chemical stripper over the screws to even be able to remove the hardware
I applied methylene chloride paint stripper to the glass, it was frankly the easiest paint I've ever stripped. 2 layers, one oil layer and a latex layer. (nail polish remover test)
A lot of it came away easy but like all paint stripping jobs, required repeat coats to get all the missed areas.
After a lot of scraping with a plastic putty knife and a hot soapy sponge with dawn to remove the white film left after the paint was removed, I ended up with this. 99% of the paint removed, there's still little bits I plan to carefully remove when the glass is out (don't want to put too much pressure on the glass when it's not on a flat surface) as I'm going to completely strip, restore and reglaze the transom and it's window/door frame.
I had to force a metal putty knife between the cracks and tap on it to force it in to break the paint seal. At last, this transom finally opens for the first time in.... how long?
The bits of newspaper I found stuffed between the transom window after liberating it should shed some light on that question!
But first a shot of the other side of the transom, still painted black like it originally was (in our town, all the Victorian homes originally had black windows) - the white is spillover from other ways they attempted to seal the transom. There was also glazing compound in the crack between the transom and it's frame as well as tissue paper in addition to the newspapers in there, the white is from the paint that they painted over that aforementioned mass... Which no surprise, didn't stay together well.
Cobweb city has been uncovered!
All the putty is out of the bottom of the transom, which means rain water would just pour inside, possibly a reason they decided to seal it up since the knowledge the fix these things seems to be lost on most folk.
The plywood over the transom is nailed onto several shim boards they nailed into the transom's inner frame, so it's not nailed into the window or anything like that thankfully. That was another factor in why I wanted to remove the paint off the glass before attempting to remove the transom in case it was nailed into the window itself.
Now, onto those newspapers! They were all scrunched up like this, I carefully unfurled them the best I could without destroying them.
The first headline: U.S. Bombers Given Unusual Jolts on Raid
What have we here? Nov 6, 1944! So to answer the above question, this is the first time that transom has moved in almost 70 years! wow. I had figured the transom was sealed in the 60s by the PO before us. This places it back by 2 decades.
Some more shots of the newspapers for those interested in such things!
More on this in another blog post, since there was so much discovery, I decided to post this all now.
I just purchased a home with several transoms. They are painted shut and lots of paint on the system that opens them. How do I get the paint off the open/close system?
ReplyDeleteHello,
DeleteThe system that opens them is called a transom operator. You need to get a big pot or crockpot, but even a normal cooking pot will do, but you might want to use a junk one as it may ruin the pot. Fill a pot with water and baking soda and boil the hardware it will make the paint come off. If the operator is too long to fit in the pot, put the end with the workings on it as that's the most important part. You can use a paint stripper for the longer pole part but it's not the best method as it is messy. There are tutorials online and on youtube about doing this. Also you may need to use a utility knife to break out the paint from the screw head in order to remove the hardware. A gentle tap with a hammer will break the paint seal if the screws seem stuck. But tap gently as most old hardware is cast iron and cast iron is brittle.