which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2008-05-28 10:13 pm
which_chick) wrote2008-05-28 10:13 pm
(no subject)
How not to fix windows plus garden advances and stuff.
Let's pretend that you have an old-timey house with old-timey windows (not modern vinyl replacement windows) and you have thoughtfully broken one of them. Weather that is meant for outside is coming inside. Clearly, something must be done.
Now, you do NOT fix old-time windows using silicone caulk. Not even if it's the clear kind. No, you fuckwit. Caulk is NOT INVOLVED.
Step 1: Using a utility knife, cut out the remaining glazing compound so that you can access the wee metal bits, called "points", that hold the glass in the frame.
Step 2: Using the utility knife, carefully pry out the points and save them for later. They are small, so don't lose them.
Step 3: Remove the remainder of the broken glass, carefully, and double check that the frame is clear of all debris.
Step 4: Using a tape measure, you measure the window frame where the glass is missing in both directions and WRITE THAT DOWN.
Step 5: You go to the hardware and have them make you a piece of glass to fit the frame. While you are there, purchase some 33 "glazing compound". (They make a caulk-gun kind but you probably don't have a caulk gun, being of the fuckwit persuasion, so get the old-fashioned kind in the tub.) Also get a putty knife. They're not expensive.
Step 6: Put the glass into the frame and re-place the points around it to help hold it in place.
Step 7: Open the glazing compound and roll a snake of it like you were playing with Play-Doh. Put your uniform and neat snake along the joint where the glass hits the wooden frame. Press it in lightly with your fingers. Then, use the putty knife to make a pretty, smooth 45 degree angle. Repeat with further snakes until all the window is glazened.
See? No caulk at all is involved. It's a caulk-free process. If you are a fuckwit and you put fucking silicon caulk all over everything so that the window looks like a vaseline'd camera lens that's supposed to provide a permanent "soft focus" for an aging starlet, then some poor schmuck (me) has to stand there and waste valuable minutes of life scraping the fucking stuff off of the window with a razorblade so that he or she may apply proper glazing compound. Fuckwit.
Everybody clear? Right, then. Onward.
I stopped at the relocated pork purveyor place yesterday and signed up for another hunk of pig in order to pursue Bacon Mk II. Those who are interested, please let me know or you're not going to get any bacon. Dad: I know you want bacon. You get to be first in line for Bacon Mk II unless you're still sulking from not getting any Bacon Mk I (he was in Mexico the whole time) and feel that Bacon Mk II would ruin your sulking.
Finally, the garden advances. Today I bought peppers (two kinds) and cherry tomatoes to put in the garden. For whatever reason, plants come in sets of four at the plant store. I don't really need four jalapeno peppers and I certainly don't need four serrano peppers TOO along with my four jalapeno peppers. I already *have* four Koontz-brand tomato plants and I really only wanted one cherry tomato because the damn things make like a zillion tomatoes and they fall off and get rotted and stuff. It's very frustrating to have even one cherry tomato plant and four would be way too many.
So, I planted the four jalapeno peppers. I know that it's too many but I couldn't just throw the extra ones away. I planted the four serrano peppers. That's way too many, assuming that they're as productive as jalapeno peppers. Jalapeno bushes make a million damn peppers. I only grew jalapenos once, when I was living in Baltimore, but the bush made approximately four hundred thousand peppers over the course of a hot, humid Baltimore summer. I was impressed. I only planted two of the cherry tomato plants. The other two I did throw away, but not without feeling a bit like I did with the baby robin problem. For fuck's sake, it is not a moral failing to throw out two cherry tomato plants when the whole set of four cost less than two dollars. (I figure the first handful or so of cherry tomatoes pays for the plants.)
Flowering right now in my yard: siberian iris (purple), iris graminea (species, short and purple), german bearded iris (purple/yellow and yellow/brown), poppies (Orange!), rugosa rose (hot pink). Peonies are looming on the horizon but are not flowering yet.
The garden needs some help. It's rather cluttered since the peonies have gotten bigger than expected and the roses... well... the roses have self-selected because all the crappy and weak roses have died and not been replaced. The only roses I have anymore are sort of robust. In short, everything is growing on top of everything else. This is not particularly acceptable. I think a redesign is in order, a redesign that will be easy to mow around. I also want permanent fixtures for my tomato plants because I hate how they overwhelm traditional tomato cages along about August. I have some things that aren't very moveable and other things that can be relocated without too much effort. I'll have to think on this and address it come next spring -- the middle of the growing season is probably not the best time to move plants all over hell and gone.
Let's pretend that you have an old-timey house with old-timey windows (not modern vinyl replacement windows) and you have thoughtfully broken one of them. Weather that is meant for outside is coming inside. Clearly, something must be done.
Now, you do NOT fix old-time windows using silicone caulk. Not even if it's the clear kind. No, you fuckwit. Caulk is NOT INVOLVED.
Step 1: Using a utility knife, cut out the remaining glazing compound so that you can access the wee metal bits, called "points", that hold the glass in the frame.
Step 2: Using the utility knife, carefully pry out the points and save them for later. They are small, so don't lose them.
Step 3: Remove the remainder of the broken glass, carefully, and double check that the frame is clear of all debris.
Step 4: Using a tape measure, you measure the window frame where the glass is missing in both directions and WRITE THAT DOWN.
Step 5: You go to the hardware and have them make you a piece of glass to fit the frame. While you are there, purchase some 33 "glazing compound". (They make a caulk-gun kind but you probably don't have a caulk gun, being of the fuckwit persuasion, so get the old-fashioned kind in the tub.) Also get a putty knife. They're not expensive.
Step 6: Put the glass into the frame and re-place the points around it to help hold it in place.
Step 7: Open the glazing compound and roll a snake of it like you were playing with Play-Doh. Put your uniform and neat snake along the joint where the glass hits the wooden frame. Press it in lightly with your fingers. Then, use the putty knife to make a pretty, smooth 45 degree angle. Repeat with further snakes until all the window is glazened.
See? No caulk at all is involved. It's a caulk-free process. If you are a fuckwit and you put fucking silicon caulk all over everything so that the window looks like a vaseline'd camera lens that's supposed to provide a permanent "soft focus" for an aging starlet, then some poor schmuck (me) has to stand there and waste valuable minutes of life scraping the fucking stuff off of the window with a razorblade so that he or she may apply proper glazing compound. Fuckwit.
Everybody clear? Right, then. Onward.
I stopped at the relocated pork purveyor place yesterday and signed up for another hunk of pig in order to pursue Bacon Mk II. Those who are interested, please let me know or you're not going to get any bacon. Dad: I know you want bacon. You get to be first in line for Bacon Mk II unless you're still sulking from not getting any Bacon Mk I (he was in Mexico the whole time) and feel that Bacon Mk II would ruin your sulking.
Finally, the garden advances. Today I bought peppers (two kinds) and cherry tomatoes to put in the garden. For whatever reason, plants come in sets of four at the plant store. I don't really need four jalapeno peppers and I certainly don't need four serrano peppers TOO along with my four jalapeno peppers. I already *have* four Koontz-brand tomato plants and I really only wanted one cherry tomato because the damn things make like a zillion tomatoes and they fall off and get rotted and stuff. It's very frustrating to have even one cherry tomato plant and four would be way too many.
So, I planted the four jalapeno peppers. I know that it's too many but I couldn't just throw the extra ones away. I planted the four serrano peppers. That's way too many, assuming that they're as productive as jalapeno peppers. Jalapeno bushes make a million damn peppers. I only grew jalapenos once, when I was living in Baltimore, but the bush made approximately four hundred thousand peppers over the course of a hot, humid Baltimore summer. I was impressed. I only planted two of the cherry tomato plants. The other two I did throw away, but not without feeling a bit like I did with the baby robin problem. For fuck's sake, it is not a moral failing to throw out two cherry tomato plants when the whole set of four cost less than two dollars. (I figure the first handful or so of cherry tomatoes pays for the plants.)
Flowering right now in my yard: siberian iris (purple), iris graminea (species, short and purple), german bearded iris (purple/yellow and yellow/brown), poppies (Orange!), rugosa rose (hot pink). Peonies are looming on the horizon but are not flowering yet.
The garden needs some help. It's rather cluttered since the peonies have gotten bigger than expected and the roses... well... the roses have self-selected because all the crappy and weak roses have died and not been replaced. The only roses I have anymore are sort of robust. In short, everything is growing on top of everything else. This is not particularly acceptable. I think a redesign is in order, a redesign that will be easy to mow around. I also want permanent fixtures for my tomato plants because I hate how they overwhelm traditional tomato cages along about August. I have some things that aren't very moveable and other things that can be relocated without too much effort. I'll have to think on this and address it come next spring -- the middle of the growing season is probably not the best time to move plants all over hell and gone.