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Many times we meet people who are interested in stained glass, but they haven’t learned enough about it to really be able to tell whether a piece of glass is a true work of art or just a good piece. I once overheard a woman gushing over a piece of glass that had been painted with fake glass paints, the kind that craft stores sell. “Oh, Look at that, I love stained glass, that is just exquisite!” Her comments were nice since she had an appreciation for art glass, but they were also ridiculous because painted fake glass just isn’t in the same class as other techniques and certainly should never be described as “exquisite”.

So that incident prompted me to write this brief description of what the different types and qualities of stained glass are. After reading the following paragraphs, you will be more qualified and more able to distinguish between good glass and great glass than the majority of people you meet. You will be well on your way towards becoming a “Stained Glass Expert.”

1. Brass And Glass - made of Brass pre-shaped metal (or brass encased lead), called “came”. The stained glass is encased in the pre-formed metal and the joints where the metal meets are then soldered. After the panel is completed and soldered, the joints are colored with a brass colored paint so that they look brass.

Advantages: Brass windows match the brass plated hardware on many homes. Brass windows are almost always mass produced, so cost is usually lower than other styles of stained glass.

Disadvantages: Brass windows usually don’t get the glass and metal cemented to each other, so they are not as strong and have a tendency to rattle more often than any other stained glass window. If the panel is sandwiched between tempered glass sheets, the lack of strength is not a big deal.

Quality: This is the lowest quality of stained glass available and is usually found in cheap furniture and mass produced door frames. It hasn’t been around for a long time and is often associated with the cheap waterbeds of the 1960’s.

2. Leaded Glass - refers to both beveled glass and colored glass surrounded by pre-shaped lead, called “came”. The stained glass is encased in lead and the joints where the metal meets are then soldered. The solder and the lead look very similar, so no special treatments are needed in the joints as with brass came. After the panel is completed and soldered, the windows are cemented by forcing cement in under the metal and the glass. Then the exposed glass is cleaned thoroughly.

Advantages: Lead construction is the most common type of stained glass to be found. If cemented well the window is fairly strong. The leaded method is fast to construct, so is quite popular in commercial installations.

Disadvantages: If the window isn’t cemented, the lead will easily stretch over time and the glass shapes will deform quite easily. Windows that are placed in insulated units can’t be cemented because the cement reacts with the desiccant in the foam tape used to create insulated units.

Quality: This is the mid-range of stained glass quality. It’s not bad, just not the best. There is pretty good detail available in this type of panel and it is quite good for many styles of glass design. If it wasn’t fairly good it wouldn’t be found in so many highly respected installations.

3. Copper Foiled or “Tiffany Style” Glass - refers to stained glass construction where each piece of glass is individually wrapped in a copper foil tape and the gaps between the glass are soldered with lead and tin based solder, usually 50/50 mix or 60/40 mix. After the panel is completed it is very strong and pretty often water tight. Chemicals are then added to color the lead lines, either copper, bronze or black. The lines can also be left pewter-like gray or they can be polished to bright shiny silver. It’s often called “Tiffany Style” because the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany are credited with coming up with the method in the late 1800’s.

Advantages: Copper foiled windows are very strong and allow the artist the most detail of any of the construction methods. It also allows for the most ranges of patinas of the methods discussed. The copper foil method allows an artist to follow contours and so lamp shades and other 3d construction is almost always built using this method.

Disadvantages: It takes a lot of work and is more labor intensive to hand solder each and every solder line in a stained glass window, so these panels usually cost more than the leaded type. Also, because the resulting windows are so very strong, they can develop very slight hairline cracks as the glass expands and contracts in the heat of the day and the cool of the night. These cracks usually develop in the first year after a panel is installed and are minor.

Quality: This is the highest quality of stained glass, but there are different ranges of quality in this style. Imports will often have very thin lead lines not as a design element, but as a way to save money on the amount of lead used to construct the panel. The highest quality of copper foil constructed lamps will feature a built up lead line which will often stand up the same height as an extruded lead line. Best quality soldering will feature very consistent lead lines and few if any areas where the lead has shrunk after cooling.

4. Epoxy Glued Faceted Glass - refers to a technique where thick slabs of glass are broken in rough pieces and glued together using epoxy glue to form the joint between the various pieces of glass. It’s very uncommon and not available in any but the most unusual commercial construction.

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at http://www.betterstainedglass.com

He also has a website with many other articles at http://www.gommstudios.com

These articles may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as the entire article, copyright notice, links and this resource box are unchanged, or if using a portion of the article, it points back to one of our pages where the entire article resides. Copyright © David Gomm All Rights Reserved.

[tags]Stained Glass,home d

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This type of repair only works when you can easy cover a crack in the design. We do this by covering the crack with copper foil and soldering over the foil. We do this on both sides of the glass, thereby creating the illusion of a lead line.

The design to the left is the design we’re going to demonstrate with. This panel had a weakness in the design and the side glass was cracked when the glass was being encased in tempered glass.

You can see the crack in the glass and if you look carefully, you will see that additional copper foil has already been applied to the backside of the glass.

Here the foil has been applied to this side and the top and bottom edges of the “patch” have been soldered. The line on the right has to be thickened to add balance to the entire design.

Next, solder is applied in a random manner to the rest of the patch. Care must be taken to avoid getting any place too hot or the glass will break from the heat.

I randomly solder back and forth until, first one side and then the other are completely soldered. I’ve left the solder joints rough instead of smoothing them because this window is supposed to look old and rustic.

Here, the finished joints are cleaned and a copper patina has been applied. Each of the four corners of the window received this treatment. Both front and back had to be soldered, using care to avoid excess heat.

But when it was done, the panel looked better than it did originally.

Photos that were taken to go with article can be viewed at http://www.betterstainedglass.com/
Newsletter/Archives/2006Feb-fakerepair/fakerepair.htm

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at his better stained glass website.

[tags]stained glass,leaded glass repair,home d

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Here is a scratch or the start of a break. It might have been caused by excess heat or a flaw in the glass. It’s been circled with pen so you can see it more readily.

To replace the piece, we start by scoring the piece to be replaced many times. First one direction, and then the other.

Then I tap from the bottom to loosen the pieces of glass. Notice that I place a garbage can below the repair to catch the debris and save myself some clean up.

I continue to tap until several pieces of glass are ready to pop out. I don’t want to be too aggressive at this stage because I don’t want to create pressure against the surrounding pieces of glass, or they might break.

Now I heat up a soldering iron and begin to heat the old joint, melting the solder and allowing it to drip into the garbage below. I usually flux the area needed to be melted just to encourage the solder to melt more readily. I try to direct more heat onto the side of the joint that I’m replacing to reduce the likelihood of breaking the neighboring pieces of glass.

After I melt as much of the solder away as I can, I flip the panel over and melt the other side the same way. (See the ball of solder resting on an adjoining piece of glass, that could create a hot spot and break the glass, so avoid that condition).

Now that most of the solder is removed and only copper foil is left to hold the pieces in the window, I begin to gently break and remove the pieces. I use great care not to damage the foil any more than necessary because if I don’t damage the foil on the adjoining pieces, I can reuse it and save myself some work.

Once all the pieces of glass are removed, I grip the unwanted foil that encased the removed piece of glass with pliers. Pulling gently on the foil at all times, I work the soldering iron around the entire piece, allowing the old solder to melt and release the unwanted foil from the surrounding foil.

When I’m done, I have a pretty clean opening. If any of the foil is damaged, I clean the area and replace it.

If this is an art glass piece you may need to create a pattern piece by placing poster board or paper under the opening and tracing it. Then cut out new glass as you normally would.

Now I set the new piece of glass in place. See the small piece of pink glass in the center, that’s to keep the new piece of glass at the same height as the rest of the panel. (You can use any color of glass as a shim!)

With the glass in place, I’m ready to flux and solder.

I touch the iron to a place where the pieces line up perfectly and lightly tack them. Then I can rock the other side gently until it lines up perfectly. I do this just often enough to get the piece in place and lined up with the surrounding pieces.

Once the new piece is tacked in place, I remove the shim to keep it from creating unwanted pressure points. Now I solder the piece back in place. I keep my iron at a lower heat setting and quickly span the air gap with melted solder. After I have the gap filled, I don’t have to be as careful with the extra heat, because the solder won’t be as easy to run through to the other side. (When the gap is so large that solder runs through, I will fill the gap with an extra piece of copper foil.)

Then I flip the window over and solder the other side.

Here, Jeanne cleans the window and dries it thoroughly, then applies a fresh coating of patina.

And it looks as good as new!

Photos that go with this article may be seen at http://www.betterstainedglass.com/
Newsletter/Archives/2006Jan-brokenpiece/brokenpiece.htm

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at his better stained glass website.

[tags]stained glass,leaded glass repair,home d

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