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Cathedral Crafts |
Restoration |
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Restoring / Releading the historical stained glass windows of your structure is a task we take great pride in. In most cases, we can bring decades of new life to even the most neglected or damaged windows:
1. Releading / Refabrication:
Lead does not rot or rust. It does, however, loose its elasticity, preventing it from stretching. In this brittle state the lead came will begin to break, bulging will be more predominate and the glass will begin to break. This begins to happen in a window over 70 years of age.
Our relead consists of the following:
- Remove panel from frame.
- Dismantle panel.
- Discard old lead.
- Clean each piece of glass.
- Reassemble panel using best quality crown metal brand lead cames. Some times several different widths of came will be used in a single panel. We will match the original widths exactly - piece by piece.
- Mismatched glass from previous repairs will be replaced with matching glass, if possible.
- Broken glass will be replaced except for pieces that cannot be matched satisfactorily. These pieces will be leaded back together.
- The panel will be cemented on both sides.
- New reinforcement bars will be attached.
- The panel will be reinstalled in its frame.
2. General repairs:
As long as the lead came is stable in windows up to 70 years of age. The following repairs can be made:
a. Reduce Bulging:
For a number of reasons leaded stained glass is vulnerable to both external and internal bulging. whether it is extreme weight poor bracing, or deteriorated cement, a variety of processes can be utilized to reduce the problem. Once the bulging has been removed, steel reinforcement braces are soldered to the window to prevent the bulge from reoccurring.b. Recementing:
A special cement compound can be brushed into the lead came and then buffed off, strengthening the window and cleaning it at the same time.c. Broken Stained Glass Replacement:
Broken pieces are closely matched from our large inventory. Broken hand painted lites of glass are recreated by our artists to resemble the original piece.d. Hand Painting:
Hand - painted glass is either colored stained glass with painting or shading, using a black tracing paint which is basically ground glass that is intermixed with water or venetian turpentine to a poster color consistency. Once this glass is painted it must be fired to a temperature of 1200 degrees so the paint which is actually ground glass can fuse itself to the glass and become a part of the glass itself. The other type of painted glass is a basically clear glass painted with special ceramic enamels using the desired colors. Any piece of glass with a design or figure on it is considered painted glass.
| Cathedral Crafts, Inc. 730 54th Avenue, Winona, MN 55987 Phone (507) 454-4079 — (800) 535-2965 eric@cathedralcrafts.com |