Thanks. Today at lunch I stopped at a BM dealer and he suggested a product called IronClad Latex Low Luster Metal and Wood enamel. It's self priming, flows/levels well and the best part is that it comes from the factory in a premixed dark bronze that matches my windows perfectly. He told me that factory mixed colors are much more fade resistant then store mixed colors due to the pigments used. I think I heard that once before. I'll report back my results but it seams like the perfect product for what I want to do.

When I built my home 23 years ago the contractor would only install Weathershield products. I asked him to switch to Pella but he refused. He stated that the weathershield products were far superior to all other brands. I should have "FIRED" that builder. I allowed him to build my house and use the best wood and exterior clad doors and windows that they had at that time The Weathershield windows and especially the 4 section sliding patio door have been a disaster. We had numerous problems and the factory people and their REPS were a joke. We have lived with our bad decision since our house was built. I can't attest to the quality of their products today but when we bought them 23 years ago it was our biggest mistake.

I agree, afsa, we have been diligent about painting and caulking these all wood windows which I believe were either Huddig or Huttig (a local company which sold out to another local millwork company) for about 10 years now. I'm just tired of fighting against the elements. Every year I have rotten sills and rotten brick mold in the lower corners of the windows. I even had my painter remove the tracks that hold the sashes to caulk and paint behind them where water was obviously penetrating. The sashes are warping and the gas seals are failing, and worst of all there's wood rot in the sheathing below the windows behind the stucco . . . again!! I don't know if this is primarily a window problem, an installation problem, a stucco problem, or some of all, but my experience with all wood windows has not been good to say the least. Hopefully, new windows, installed and sealed properly will keep my home from becoming a bigger money pit! With all that we have spent on maintenance and repairs, we could have paid for at least half of our new windows by now. I a hopeful to find a solution :-)

"but is there no way to clad a window properly? " None besides paint that requires periodic renewal as it weathers and develops breaks in the film. There is no way to make a seal that will exclude water indefinitely (or in many cases even for a reasonable time). "I have see clad windows that are 20+ years old that are fine." Have you taken them out and apart to determine if they really are in good shape? I would bet money that there is rot under the cladding. The cladding may still look good, and the wood surface on the interior may still look good, but there is no way to tell without tearing them apart if rot has started. Solid wood windows can almost always be repaired (unless they have really been allowed to decay extensively). Every piece of the window frame and sash can be replaced. I have worked on wooden double hung windows that are original from the late 1700s (old town Alexandria, VA). No one wants to perform maintenance, and the continued search for 'maintenance free' has led to all sorts of solutions that are never going to last as long as a plain old wooden window. Windows being made now are generally estimated to have a life of only 30-40 years.