After my experiments with fuming, I decided to go with stain. I bought a small can of "red oak" stain and stained all the slats. The color is a nice dark brown, but nothing like the red oak I use as actual wood. And of course, after I stained the wood I found some oak stain that I could have used instead and not bought new. Oh well.
To give the the stain a couple of days to dry fully, I turned to putting glass in the sashes that I'd built last winter. I hadn't cut any glass since I was in junior high school back in the 70's, so this was all new. I got some from the local hardware store, cut into 8" wide X 32" long strips, with enough glass if _everything_ went perfectly. After a few Youtube videos I decided I was qualified, so off I went. I dug out my grandfather's glass cutter and a nice Starrett combination square. The first pane cut to length and then width perfectly. I checked for a good fit then rolled out some glazing putty and made a bed for the glass inside the first sash opening. The glass pressed into place nicely.
Next up was adding the glazing pins and then filling in the outside putty. I had trouble smoothing this uniformly since my putty knife tended to tear it rather than smoothing it. The second and third panes went in easily too after I cut them. The glass wasn't perfectly cut in all positions, but I was able to sand back the edges a little on my belt sander. (Note that I was sanding the glass holding the glass vertically on the belt sander table, minimizing the chance of breakage.) Once the glass and putty steps were complete, I put the sash back in the transom opening. The putty needs a week to dry enough to paint.
After the green room window, I moved onto the blue room transom window. This went almost as smoothly, until I pressed slightly wrong on the last pane and cracked it. I cut another and put it in without incident, but the stage had been set. It was no longer My Day.
Moving on to the third (yellow) sash), my run of bad luck (or bad technique) continued and I cracked 3 more pieces while only getting one more successfully installed. At this time I was out of glass and decided to let it wait to get more.
My luck having turned bad again, I moved back to the lattice work on the bathroom transom. Here I took the trouble to soak all the slats in water for a couple of days, then put the vertical slats' pot onto my gas stove and waited for the water to boil. The water would back the slats more flexible, and the hot water for the vertical slats even more so. I brought the whole pot of boiled slats over to the kitchen table to start the assembly. Calculations showed that openings of 1/2" x 3/4" would fill the sash opening nicely. I planed down some poplar and cut it off to make 1/2 x 3/4" spaceers. I also made a diagram to show how the weave would be done. To keep from breaking even the more flexible slats, I made the weave sets of two up and two down which kept it from bending too fast and breaking.
Here's my daugter holding it up over the bathroom door.
For the second grill, I need to plane the slot out with the plow plane and then can get started. After that I'll paint them. Right now I haven't finalized my paint color source so these will wait a bit. Also, I haven't cut holes in the walls for them.
Lisa came over on New Years Day and helped finish cutting the glass after I bought a new piece. So the first three sashes are done and I have one pane cut for the fourth (new) sash. The next step will be to finalize the hall and bedroom trim and wall color choices, cut the transom holes and fit the sashed, paint the new sashes, and then start on the bedroom in earnest by removing the existing trim and painting the walls.
Kirk
So now on to stain, then I'll get to soaking the slats and assembly.
