Pimp My Door (part 1)

Okayyyy, as I keep droning on about the damage I did to our front door (ie. breaking a little window), I shall finally conclude this bombination with it's resolution: New Upgraded Glass. Well, maybe just *a* new window for now.

Why do I feel this entry is worthy of more than just a picture and a "here-you-go", you may be asking? Well...because I really had to think about this one before I did it, and it appeared that another such window was replaced at one time without so much thought. I didn't want to damage it further than I had.

Here's the dilemma (which turned out to not really be a dilemma afterall). Each of the 8 little window openings is actually just a simple cut-out of the solid door. The glazing is held in by 4 beveled strips of oak on either side, glued and nailed to the door. I knew that if I could somehow remove one of the peices, the others would be cake. But being that the nails holding each peice were finish nails, I was faced with choosing to (A) gouge out a nail (and leave an ugly divit) or (B)pry the first strip out until it snapped in half. This is what some former owner chose to do.

Sinkage

I figured there had to be a better way that wouldn't leave damage. So I opted to just sink the nail. I got myself the smallest drift pin (center punch, if you will) I could find, 1/16". These are more common in the auto repair or mechanical realm, so try looking in such a shop. I marked the depth on this tool with some tape and hammered the little nail clear through.

Pry-ers and Pliers

Then, using a thin knife, I dislodged the glued bond. This also breaks the shellac/finish skin and prevents any chipping/splintering. The peice is then pried out laterally with a stiff spackle knife. And there you will see that little sunken nail still in the door that you can now pull out with some needle nose pliers.

More scoring with the knife and then the remaining peices can be pried out normally. After cleaning up the opening surfaces, I set the new beleved glass in with glaziers putty and glued the little wood stops back in along with another finishing nail in the original hole, albeit slightly larger/longer than the previous ones.

And Voila! I have to say it's looking pretty nice, especially up next to those plain panes which also happen to be a bit sandblasted (grumblegrumble). My only regret is that we were hoping for more bevel, but at $1.22 each, I really can't complain.