It's a wooden window on a french house in good order save for a rotten horizontal piece of beading (I know that's not the right term but that's what it looks like). This is on the inside and outside of a particular horizontal and is completely rotten in the middle so you can see daylight where the pane ends. How do I remove this piece of wood to replace or is there an effective way of bodging it until we can afford to replace the window as there are quite a few like this in the house?

Heather Caswell, June 2007

Sorry, I am informed it is not beading. I'll try and explain which bit it is. The window is oblong portrait shape. Obviously the main oblong bits of wood hold the window together and there are two, inward opening panes and a central rod down the middle with a window knob that when rotated, disengages the rod from the hole in the window frame top and bottom and the window opens.

Within each separate opening window there are three panes of glass with two cross members of wood holding them in place. It is one of these that is rotten on both the inside and the outside. They seem to be quite firmly attached to the outer square so any ideas how I can mend, botch so they'll look reasonable?

heather, June 2007

If it is beading it should be held in place by a few panel pins.
You can pry it off using a screwdriver or chisel.

Big Softy, June 2007