Home DIY

Renewing the putty?

Yes. It's no biggie theoretically, just chisel out the old crap, scrape sand and clean with alcohol, make sure everything is dry and not rotten, get the fresh putty in there.

In practice, it's the last step that I seem incapable of getting right. It's sticky and messy and despite having done several windows I never get any good at it. Only tip I can think of is mask off the border as otherwise the stuff goes everywhere on the pane if you make a mistake (you will) and use lots of soapy water on the spatula (not sure that's the correct word, metal thing to smooth the putty with). I always have to go over things with a razorblade the next day to get it looking decent, I never manage to get it looking very good. I watched a pro do it once and it seemed easy...