1900 Victorian Home Restoration: May 2015

This chronicles part 2 of the transom window restoration I started last year, that got delayed many times ~~~ stain

Pt. 1 can be found at this page

At any rate, I have to say this is my proudest interior restoration job so far!

Stripping the paint from the door frame.

The removed transom.

Large amounts of caked paint in the space between the jamb and window mixed with tissue paper.

Rusty hinges

The other side with original black paint and a splash of white.

Carefully removing the old putty

3/8" diamond points.

closeup

Getting all the layers of paint off the transom window operator was time consuming and difficult since it is about 3 feet long, which makes it too big to boil or to soak in paint remover, so I had to use a combination of boiling, paint remover and 0000 steel wool.

Discovered a makers mark on the base of the transom operator.

I believe it reads
SOLDGRIP (Solidgrip?)
TYSON MFG. CO
CHICAGO

another shot of it

Getting ready to strip the paint off of the interior portion of the transom. Removing the glass took forever as there wasn't only old putty, tiny glazing points, the glass was stuck from the inside also by way of a paint seal which I had to carefully break with a putty knife.

Stripping under way showing the original stained surface.

Heat stripping done.

Now time to restore the hinges!

It was a nightmare to get these unscrewed from the jamb, as well as from the window itself. They were rusted shut very badly, had to use a combination of careful force and WD-40 to do the job.

It was another nightmare to get the pins out of the hinges, as you can see in the above photos, the pins were halfway in and halfway out, stuck in place with paint. Paint wasn't just on the surface, but it had worked its way inside between the pin and hinges. A lot of WD40 and some elbow grease, in addition to sticking another pin of the same size in the opposite end and tapping with a hammer to break the paint seal.

I tried soaking in vinegar and salt and scrubbing but this rust and pitting was very bad.

Transom fully stripped.

Sash profile carefully stripped.

Sanded and wiped down with mineral spirits.

Stained. I used Zar Dark Mahogany stain, its a single coat stain far better than cheaper brands such as minwax.

I used a wonderful product called Evapo-Rust to strip all the rust off the hardware. It's truly a miracle product. I will make another post about the wonders of this product and how I lacquered all the hardware to protect it after the rust was gone. Read about it here

Glazing the window.

After the glazing was done, I painted the window black.

The window frame fully stripped. I hate plastic blinds, always break where everyone peeks outside grr!!

Sanded with 150 grit sandpaperand ready to be stained.

The stain went on beautifully! Now with this frame stained, the white plastic door looks even worse. I plan to get a custom wood door made to replace it. For some reason, the lighting and possibly the colors of the room made a good photo difficult. Everything isn't that dark.

Staining done, I coated it with 1 coat of Zinnser shellac. I only do 1 coat of shellac because it most closely resembles original stained/shellac Victorian. Putting 2 coats makes it look excessively shiny and plastic looking like if I had used poly.

Now time to remove the plywood from the exterior, it had a piece of siding and under it was this. Blobs of caulk, a ton of nails and a few sheets of paper thin aluminum.