Rather than applying masking tape to the glass when painting window sash, it’s easier to get a little paint on the glass and then clean it up later with a window scraper. Here’s how to go about it:

  1. Paint the sash and allow the paint to dry.
  2. Position a 6” wide putty knife against the sash and glass.
  3. Use a window scraper fitted with a sharp, single-edge razor blade to scrape any excess paint off the glass.

Watch the video above to find out more.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Joe Truini: Painting neatly, especially around window panes, requires more patience than I have. And so I used to painstakingly mask off the glass with strips of tape every time I’d paint it. And you can imagine, you have a window this size and you’re doing two or three windows, a lot of time—you spend way more time masking the glass than actually painting the window.

So, I finally decided to forgo masking all together, and I would just paint it. If the paint got on the glass, it got on the glass. I wasn’t going to worry about it. What I’d learned is that it wound up being a much faster way to paint in the end. So, what I did here—here’s a couple I just started. You can see the paint kind of got splashed out onto the glass a little bit. I didn’t even worry about it.

I’m just going to take a knife—a 6-inch wide putty knife—and a window scraper. This is just, you can get this at any hardware store, and put in a nice straight blade razor. I’m just going to scrape the paint right off the glass. There, you see after just a few seconds how nice and clean that comes out.

Using this trick, you don’t have to worry about being such a sloppy painter, because in the end you save time and get a much neater job.


Further Information

Editorial Contributors
avatar for Joe Truini

Joe Truini

Radio Show Co-Host

Joe Truini is a contractor, author, and the host of “Simple Solutions” on Today’s Homeowner TV and the weekly Today’s Homeowner radio show. He has worked on both large commercial projects and residential remodeling, and has written for national publications such as This Old House and Popular Mechanics. He has also written eight books, including three best-selling shed-building books. Joe lives in Connecticut with his family and enjoys hiking, traveling, and baseball in his spare time.

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