Before and after pics

This project was started to replace the glazing for the glass, fix the broken weight ropes, remove and replace the white, lead based, chipping paint.  It turned into a full restoration project because the quality of the wood was so repairable.  It's southern yellow pine aged for 100 years.  The grain is very straight, and solid.  I have not seen one knot or splice.

I started by testing the paint for lead with a test kit.  The white flaking paint on the sills and side pieces were found to be oil based lead paint.  The tip of the test stick immediately turned scarlet red when put on the white paint.  The interior colored latex tested negative for lead, but the 1st layer of paint was oil based.  I couldn't test the oil based layer for lead, but I know it's there because of how it melted under the heat gun.

So here's some pics of the paint I started with.

 Here's some after pictures.  You can see the straight grain of the wood.  All the lead paint was replaced with latex.  Don't worry, we'll get there!

 You can see how it's flaking and cracking.  All lead based, very bad.  The only good thing about this old oil based paint is melts and scrapes off wood very easily.  The bad thing is it puts off lead fumes when heated, so you have to wear a special type of paint mask rated for lead fumes.  The filters have a pink color to indicate the chemical filter rating.  Here's a pic.

I found the best method to remove the paint is with a heat gun and a stiff, sharp, putty knife.  I would never sand until as much paint is removed as possible with a heat gun.  The sanding dust would be too hard to contain and would contaminate the whole area.  Just put a big fan in the window blowing out, close the door, wear a mask, gloves and an apron, and you should be fine for small jobs like this.  That's it for tonight.