What are the finishes on these windows?

[Vala]

Hello all,

I actually had found some windows from another house in my town that actually are a perfect match for some of my windows. So I decided to use them, the only modification I had to do was change the bevel on the bottom rail from 6° to 21° for my sills.

I am currently stripping these windows and am encountering some strange finishes.

First of all what is this red colored stuff underneath the black paint? You can see it showing through from the chipping black paint

red under black.jpg (189.76 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

I stripped the sashes and the red stuff remained and it's kind of hard to remove with a heat gun.

red color.jpg (157.07 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

I think it would sand off, but any ideas what it is? Stain? This is on the exterior face of the sash. I have been using Allback paint for the exterior of my sashes and so I'm concerned with getting down to bare wood in order to avoid problems.

The wood is either old growth fir or pine so this is not the natural color of the wood.

I'm also stripping the interior side because there appears to be some odd and cracked paint or varnish that does not match my interior stained trim color, I'm also having a hard time removing this finish. It didn't really respond to denatured alcohol but does respond similar to paint with the heat gun. So a kind of paint? It does sand off and I successfully sanded off a small section with sandpaper but it is very wasteful to sand it off so I decided to try heat.

odd wood finish.jpg (473.53 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

Thanks very much,

[Willa]

I wonder if the red paint that won't budge is milk paint ?

I had some antique doors that had a very old paint finish that would NOT budge under the heat gun. It wouldn't bubble or lift or do anything. I gave up and just painted over them.

(But also: good score finding old windows that fit your openings. White vinyl atrocity replacement windows begone !)

[Manalto]

I wonder if it might be red oxide primer, typically used as a rust preventive on metal.

[phil]

"red lead" that primer was often called..
It looks thin so I'd just try a cold sharp carbide scraper on that. mask up if you do lots. or if they are out just let the sander do the work at least on the flats.

I think that it might be something applied that wasn't original. If you are painting it it might not be an issue anyway. If it was the inside and I had the frame and glass out, I'd strip it with a sander once you get the bulk of paint off. or just clamp it down and use a hand plane. or a sharp scraper, whatever you enjoy most

I find the heat gun is bes to get the bulk off then mechanical means, like sandpaper can work. You just dont; want to sand through more paint than necessary as that is a waste of time and paper and makes too much dust.

im ok stripping wood down to fresh wood , If want it darker that's easy to do. otherwise I get caught in endless nit picking of fragments of paint. that's time consuming.. Necessary in delicate areas but not on the big flat areas.

I'd carefully strip delicate moldings, but roundovers like on casings and baseboards I just re-cut once the bulk of paint is off. because it's so much faster.
so the way I do it , strip the flats, then run the router with roundover bit over and recut the roundover. on edges I often just tablesaw. just do a "kiss cut"

on windows of course you dont wan to make them smaller , on some things loosing 1/16th of dimension is no big deal. let the blades do the work.

[Mastercarpentry]

Around the turn of the century there was a lot of 'faux mahogany' being used. It's a wood dye, not a stain, and I understand that it can be 'washed out' but I can't remember which chemical was used to do that. The usual problem with dyed wood is that it tends to bleed color through new the new finish. I'd try priming a spot with Zinsser red label and see what happens. If need be, PM me here and I'll see if I can find whoever it was that clued me in on this, and in the meantime I'll ask one or two folks about it.

Phil