How To Repair A Broken Center Piece Of Stained Glass

Methods For Repairing Broken Stained Glass

Fixing broken stained glass is a necessary evil. With glass every bit a material breakages are inevitable. Yous know the scenario; you're happily soldering away on your latest slice only to plow information technology and realise there's a crack in the drinking glass. And yous don't have enough art glass to supervene upon information technology. This is what happened to 1 of my readers Ken Keith. He wrote to me asking for suggestions to fix information technology.

Luckily, there is a way to fix this cleaved stained glass without dismantling your work and driving 75 miles for replacement glass.

You can come across the scissure in close upwards hither:

Milly'southward Quick Tip For Fixing Broken Stained Drinking glass

Rather than having to undo your work there is a elementary fix:

Find a spare slice of interior lead came longer than the fissure
Cut the top face/flange off a this piece of atomic number 82 came with either a lead knife, nippers or atomic number 82 angle cutters

To do this, I use a SHARP lead knife or for this chore I particularly like these Lead Angle Cutters ( affiliate link from Amazon) in the US. If you're in the UK I found a pair hither from UK Amazon (affiliate link) – at a very reasonable toll considering the price I paid for mine!

Shape the flange to fit over the crack and trim it to barrel up to the adjoining lead

Solder information technology at either end to concur information technology securely in place
Plow over and repeat on the backside
Cement, clean and polish every bit normal

Adjusting The Design

As this is a geometric panel, I suggested add matching 'false' leads on the other side of the panel to even the blueprint up visually. Yous can see how this balances the pattern beneath.

If you're new to using lead came as a technique I would highly recommend you give it a attempt. It volition add a great deal to your skill set and requite y'all the best of both stained glass worlds – foil and lead.

If y'all don't have a local grade my Leaded Stained Glass Artistry course has taught many people – fifty-fifty those who have never used atomic number 82 earlier – how to make a stained glass panel using atomic number 82 came. The course is self-paced and online and then yous can learn this lovely technique even if you are unable to get to a grade. You tin can find out more than about it here Leaded Stained Glass Artistry.

The client loved the finished stained glass window. I don't know about you, just I think the additional 'false' leads actually ADD to the overall pattern! They give it a nice bit of particular in the centre.

This is a very good method for lead came when the broken stained glass window doesn't have to be weather condition proof. If the window is an external window and DOES need weather proofing, y'all'll need to remove the piece of glass and replace I'thousand afraid.

The astonishing Karal has a page on how to exercise this here.

PIN Information technology FOR LATER!

More Resources

There are unlike solutions for panels that have been constructed using copper foil. I'll add together to this page later with those and so keep checking dorsum 🙂

If you struggle with cutting accurate angles in lead came there'south a page for y'all here.