New ways to hit nails, volume 2

Lee Valley makes a glazier’s hammer with a triangular head that rotates. Now why on Earth would you want a hammer like that? Read on…

When I lived in an old Victorian house, I used the World Series to help maintain and repair old double-hung windows. With the ball game on the radio, I’d set up on the front porch with a pair of sawhorses as a work table for this year’s ration of window sash.

The sequence included pulling moldings to remove the sash from the frame, knocking out the loose old putty with a glazier’s knife, softening the stubbornly hard putty with a propane torch, then carefully pulling the glazier’s points and releasing the glass. Some panes could be re-used and others had to be replaced—you can lose a lot of heat through cracked window glass. Then, I'd scrape the loose paint off the wooden frame, re-glue the loose corner joints, then prime the whole thing (especially the rabbet where the glass would sit).

Next step: let it dry until Game 2.

To reinstall the glass, I'd roll out a little bead of glazing compound and press it into the rabbet, then press the pane into the putty. Retain the glass with new points, reputty, repaint, and rehang.

Press the points in with the glazier’s knife and dagnabbit, the point pivots so the knife digs a deep scar into the wood. Try hammering the points. Double dagnabbit, the hammer skitters and the fragile old glass breaks.

Then I found Lee Valley's triangular-head glazier’s hammer. The head rotates so it can slide flat on the glass at any handle angle, and it does a perfect job on those points. Same thing when you are making picture frames and repairing mirrors. It also works with brads. If your maintenance calendar includes repairing old windows, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without one of these hammers—and when you don’t break even one single pane, you’ll already have repaid the hammer's $17.50 price.