How To Fix A Weak or Broken Piece with a Solder Bridge

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Glass Artists Newsletter - May 2007

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.

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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.

Last month's open house to celebrate International Stained Glass Month was a great success.

This month we look forward to the Utah Valley Parade of Homes and we're continuing our work on the Provo Art's Council windows.

Below, Jeanne shows off an apron with our new logo for Imagine Stained Glass and I'm turning an Arts Council panel around.

This month, we show how to fix either a small break or a weakness in a thin piece of glass using a solder bridge technique. It's a trick that you won't need very often, but when you do need it, it will save you hours of repair time!

How To Fix or Reinforce Glass With A Solder Bridge

This is a panel that we built which had a weakness in a long thin section. We built several of them and they would sometimes crack at the thin point of the glass. So to keep that from happening and to reinforce the weak spot, we needed to reinforce the spot where the break was taking place.
	The back of this piece is already repaired, you can see the bridged solder bead on the back of the panel.
	First, add solder to the foiled edges like you would in any other soldering job.
	Then add a bead, usually just one drop, of solder to bridge between the two solder lines. Touch both edges of the soldering iron tip to each of the solder lines you are bridging.
	As the bead is laid down, it looks very wide and fat.
	But when the solder iron is lifted up, the bead rounds up on top and the repair looks perfect.
This technique works on very thin spaces, where there is only a short gap to bridge. If you have a larger gap, you'll want to add a piece of copper foil to the gap (applying it to the surface of the glass) to give the solder a place to adhere to.
April 2007 - Stained Glass Celebration

In our invitation to the open house we invited folks to take pictures to share with us as a part of the stained glass celebration. Betsy Delorey sent us a few pictures of stained glass at a home built by Frank Lloyd Wright.

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Email: david@gommstudios.com

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