What is the best way to strip muntins and molding?

[MrPowerful (WavyGlass)]

I've never had any luck with a profile mold scraper...my all time favorite scraper is bahco 620 with a triangle blade...really, curved profiles are a series of straight lines...you need to develop a good sturdy but soft touch...

the easiest way to remove glass that I have found is using a steambox...there is an initial investment in time and money but, after that, it's mostly smooth sailing...we remove the paint with a heatgun....clamp the sash to a bench or saw horses....make sure to have plenty of ventilation and wear a p100 or n100 respirator mask...

after the paint is removed, sand the sash with 80--120 grit paper...

hope that helps....
....jade

Jade,

Do you feel like the steaming before the heat gun makes it more effective? This is just out of my own curiosity.

[CS in Low Hud]

When I did my windows, I built a frame out of 1X12"s, lined it with thick plastic drops (making it a tank), put in the window frames and several gallons of zipstrip and let it sit over night covered. For me, this took off everything - paint and putty -with a little easy scraping afterwards. It's nasty, caustic, work, and creates a lot of waste (so a steam box would have been a better choice, probably), but you can do many windows in the same stripper ooze, and it is quick.

Chris

[phil]

I just mounted a spare router up under the side table of my tablesaw, then use the fence as a guide and you can take off however little or as much as you want and you don't need to rely on a guide bearing. I could have a router table but just don't want to spare the room and this works just fine. also could use the shaper head on the arbor of the tablesaw. if you are goint to the extent of setting that up and disassembling the frames, why not just cut a whole mountain of muntins and then replace them? it's just a stick

[heartwood]

mr......yes, the steam tends to bubble and loosen the paint...when the paint comes back to room temperature, it hardens again but is less tenaciously attached to the wood...some paint can be scraped when the sash come out of the steamer but often the wood pulls and threads up...sometimes you get luck and a lot of paint from the flat areas can be removed with steam...we follow up with a heat gun which works especially well on the profiles....depending on how many panes of glass you have, the sash may need to go back in the box a time or two...for 6 light sash, we remove 3 panes, put the sash back, pull out another sash and so on......

you can find instructions on how to build a steambox in te 'how to' section of this forum....

sashguy....we all have different preservation philosophies...I have no doubt your method works well but I prefer not to disassemble sash unless necessary for repairs...

....jade