Stained Glass Question

[cjsmith]

Feel free to point others at this. My thanks for any info or help.

I've got a piece of stained glass I find lovely. Sadly, it was injured several years ago when it was dropped, and I've never known what to do with it since. I can't just hang it as is. One corner has small shards falling out.

Stained Glass People: Can this be fixed?

As best I can tell (by looking through the clear bits) the seams between the glass pieces are lead, not copper with flux. The piece is about 11x17 overall and is framed in a thin metal edge. That frame would have to be removed and redone afterward. Three triangular pieces at the corners would need replacing; they are clear glass with a very subtle texture, for which clear glass with no texture at all would be a good enough match for me.

Any hope?

(If not, what's a good way to dispose of it? Glass recyclers can't do anything with it, can they?)

Comments

[firecat]

Ask these folks in San Carlos:

http://www.sgimages.com/

They once framed a stained glass piece for me and did a beautiful job. (The framing also required adding some glass to the piece.)

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

It can be fixed.
DO NOT TOSS IT OUT.
You can sell it for salvage glass even.
I do business with a glass shop that does stained glass repair.
If you want I'll be glad to put you in touch with them because it ain't like it's too big to ship, and I know his prices are good.
(And the dude is seventy-something and a total flirt.)

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

There's a place in Berkeley (the Stained Glass Garden, I'm pretty sure) that does stained glass and teaches classes, etc. I'll bet they could help you out, or recommend someone closer if there is anyone closer.

Oh hey - look what I found: http://stainedglassgarden.com/custom/restoration.html

[otterpop58.livejournal.com]

perhaps Dan could help you out...
check out http://www.squaredancingstainedglass.com/

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

My aunt used to have a business repairing stained glass pieces. She was staying busy and making money, and only closed up because she decided to dedicate more time to her horses.

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

I was recently "skooled" on stained glass.
The most interseting part was that some colors are way more expensive than otheres, and that even if a piece is broken pretty badly, glass-hounds will take them apart for the small pieces to use in future repairs because color match is so important.

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

If you had any desire to ship it back to the Boston area, I'm sure my stained glass guy, Daniel Maher Stained Glass (http://www.dmstainedglass.com/), could help.

[apparentparadox]

As others have said, stained glass pieces are fairly easy to fix. Copper foil is easier to fix than lead, because really, you just need to replace the pieces that are broken & re-solder it. With lead, the pattern the lead (where the lead pieces are joined for example) makes may actually be part of the design as well.

In a good piece of stained glass, if it was done with copper foil, then the seams between the pieces of glass will be mostly flat -- it's just solder over the copper foil after all. With lead, there is always a bump between the pieces of glass (since the lead has an "I" shape, with the glass fitting in the notches), and it's only soldered at places where the lead pieces have to join together.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, cool, thanks!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow, if he can restore seriously old pieces in buildings he's got ten times the skill needed for this thing. He's impressive!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had the impression that the solder over the copper was often intended to make a bump to simulate lead. I didn't know people would make an effort to do it flat.

[apparentparadox]

It's really hard to get a good smooth uniform bump using just solder. The Tiffany Lamps generally could do it, but those people were really skilled.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh WOW. *boggle*