Repair Stained Glass Window

How to Repair Your Stained Glass Window

If you have some experience in stained glass handcrafts fixing your old or tarnished stained glass window is a project you may look at doing yourself.  This article presumes you have at the least some experience in this trade.  If your window is very worthful, if you do not have any experience in stained glass window creating or if you lack trust in your abilities this is a project you may would like to leave to the professionals.  Otherwise, the method is very much like producing a fresh stained glass window and in the least more comfortable in the sense that you do not have to do much, if any, glass cutting.

Trouble #1:  The leaded stained glass window cames are approximately seventy years old (or older) and have become brittle inducing bulking or breakage.

This commonly starts to occur in a stained glass window over seventy years old. Lead does not rot or corrode, but it does breaks down elasticity and become brittle across time.  If left neglected it may cause the stained glass pieces to come out or smash as well.

The answer:

Re-leading the window.  This is time exhausting, but very worthwhile to repair your stained glass window to its original beauty and unity.  The following measures must be acquired:

1. Take a photo of the window and measure lead cames to help with rebuilding it afterwards.

2. Take the panel out of the window frame and get rid of panel framing.

3. Next, you will need to take the whole panel apart using the soldering iron to undo solder and lightly pry the old cames from the glass parts.

4. Discard old lead in an environmentally friendly way, you should likely take it to a metal recycling facility.

5. Next each piece of glass should be thoroughly cleaned and dried.  Put the parts in place so as not to get confused afterwards.

6. Reassemble panel using with new lead cames in the same width as the master.

7. Split stained glass parts should be copied and corresponded as nearly as possible to a new piece of glass cut with the design you make.  Another alternative if you have all the burst parts and either cannot correspond the stained glass nearly enough or do not prefer to place new parts in, is to apply thin lead cames to bind the broken parts together.  This alternative will probably make it visible that the window has been fixed, so use with caution.

8. New cement should be employed to both sides

9. New support bars should now be connected.

10. The stained glass panel is now set to be re-framed and re-hung.

This method should be executed when the window is approaching seventy years old. Adopting the measures above should result in an all over renovation of your stained glass window and it should be as structurally sound as a brand new one.

Problem #2:  One stained glass panel in a window less than 70-years-old is broken.

The answer:

This will depend on the position of the broken part.  If it is near the outer edge, you may be able to escape with cautiously breaking the tarnished piece out of the frame and applying the bonding iron to loosen the lead cames and then re-soldering the new piece in place as in #7 above.  If the burst piece is in a complex location or if there are numerous broken parts, you may would like to re-lead the whole window adopting the above directions. 

If there is a little crevice, you might regard using a glass mending kit from the automotive store.  These are used to fix small chippings and crevices in windshields and if the damage is slim, may be a proper method to mend the crevice and forestall additional impairment.

There are a number of other little fixtures that you are able to do yourself such as re-painting regions that have peeled off, but these will need to be got rid of and re-kilned and you may prefer to confer with with a professional for help with that.  Repairing your stained glass window may be a scrupulous operation, but it is worth it to save its original beauty and make it endure for future generations.