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Glass
Artists Newsletter - March 2006 |
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You
can read our current newsletter here
on-line each month, free of charge. We
hope you will take the opportunity to let
your stained glass artist friends know
about the newsletter and if you have
students, encourage them to read it.
If
you'd like a reminder when a new issue is
published simply send us your e-mail
address.
In
the meantime, we welcome your input and
support. Let us know if you have tips and
techniques or product information you'd
like to share. |
We
worked hard last month to get several
projects completed. We had a designer ask
if we could get her work done in three
weeks for their move-in date. 3 doors in
three weeks? That ought to be easy, except
that all our workspace was already covered
with work in progress for another client.
We had to work to complete all those other
windows before we could start on theirs.
We got
it done, just in time, Whew!
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| In
January we showed how to make a simple one
piece repair.
In
February I showed how to fake a repair.
This
month, I want to show a technique to
repair a window which has been destroyed.
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Repairing
Severe Damage |
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Ed
Sibbet is one of the very few book
designers who creates designs which can be
built as drawn and has great perspective.
The Gemini Girl
was the first design that I ever built. I
built a second copy of it after the first
was damaged in a house fire. I spent 2 or
3 months building a custom oak frame in
college. So it was very painful when the
panel was knocked from it's hook and
shattered into many pieces. Rebuilding it
was out of the question, nearly every
piece was damaged. It would have been
easier to build a new one rather than
using traditional repair techniques. |
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Even
the oak frame was broken, but fortunately
it had only broken at the original glue
joints. |
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So,
first I had to fix the frame by
gluing and clamping it. |
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Then I
had to tap in a broken piece under her eye
and adjust several broken pieces to be as
flat as possible. I used a small hammer
and a piece of wood to coax pieces back in
place. If there had been a piece missing I
would have taped a piece of paper on the
back of the panel and then soaked it off
with water a few days later. |
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I then
cleaned it carefully and put new black
patina on the window. |
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Preparation
is key. I once did the same repair to a
panel and accidentally glued the piece to
the work bench. I now recommend covering
the bench with wax paper and don't leave
any gaps in the glass where the resin can
run through.
Then I mixed up
the epoxy based resin, I used EnviroTex
Lite, a pour on high gloss finish sold at
craft stores. It was important to mix it
vigorously for two minutes. |
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Then it
was poured in place. |
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I
tipped the panel to run the mixture over
the whole surface. |
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Last, I
blew on it to cause the small bubbles that
formed to pop by reacting to carbon
dioxide in my breath. A day or two later,
I came back and coated the other side of
the window. |
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As you
can see on the left and on the picture
below, the cracks are still visible. But
the panel is strong and clean and still
looks great. So this might not be the
perfect way to fix a panel, but it is
great for old pieces and valuable pieces
and is especially good for pieces which
are viewed from a distance, like skylights
and architectural glass. |
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