The leaded light in the front door of my 1930's house was broken 2 months ago. Since then I have been trying to get an estimate from a local from a local glazier to repair it. I don't quite understand if they don't want the sodding job why they just don't say so but 2 months on I am still waiting for them to phone back with the price that they assure me is on its way. Does anybody know any good glaziers in Herts or North West London that give a damn and can be bothered to give me an estimate. I hope that the tossers still have the broken light that I gave them to repair. Business must be good.
1/. cut the lead with a sharp knife in tow corners as a mitre. and peel it back enough to remove the pane
2/., get a new one cut.
3/. use a little putty to bed the new pane in, and insert it back carefully bending the lead back. a block benind and a gentle pressure with something like a spoon back will help
4/ solder the cuts youmade back with a soldering iron and as little solder as you can. acid flux (plumbing) works OK.
5/. wash the flux off with water, and the putty off with white spirit.
1/. cut the lead with a sharp knife in tow corners as a mitre. and peel it back enough to remove the pane
2/., get a new one cut.
3/. use a little putty to bed the new pane in, and insert it back carefully bending the lead back. a block benind and a gentle pressure with something like a spoon back will help
4/ solder the cuts youmade back with a soldering iron and as little solder as you can. acid flux (plumbing) works OK.
5/. wash the flux off with water, and the putty off with white spirit.
o lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded wit h goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing nu mber of producers.
NP - is it really as easy as that ?
I have some dozen old (1920's/1930's?) wooden window frames in store that are leaded decorative glass panels. I looked into cannibalising to create one or two good ones, but enquiries seem to indicate that I would have to go to classes to find out how to do it.
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
according to my carpenters it is. They do a few a year as part ofr their 'services to exsponsive and often listed' houses.
I watched my leaded lights being assembled by a man with an oxy acetylene torch, and that's how they do it - using more like pure lead than solder. and the panes don't crack if you are neat and quick.
well my wife IIRC has booked us on a course to learn how to repair rush seats. But I remember an old tinker in the 50s who would come and re-cane and re-rush seats. There's not a lot to it other than - like thatching - getting the basic principles down pat, having the right materials, the right tools and a certain amount of practice.
let's face it. builders are thick. It cant be that hard to build a house. And having done it, it isn'y. There's just a lot of low skilled and heavy work involved.
Repairing a leaded light is a bit higher up the pay grade, but not much.
If you have some old ones give it a go. stanley knife should be enough to remove the old panes, and a 50W or bigger soldering iron should be enough to repair the cuts afterwards.
Its not hard to do, soldering can take some practice. Just watch a youtube vid and get the supplies.
There are always people that want to portray simple jobs as highly difficult so that people will pay them instead of diying, and pay them highly. DIY's about seeing through that.
ult so that people will pay them instead of diying, and pay them highly. DI Y's about seeing through that.
Thanks for your comments. Having done the 'major house renovation', the only 'skill' that I failed to master was plastering - actually'master' should really read something like 'come to terms with', and I certainly didn't with plastering. There are clearly skills that just doing it slowly cannot replace, but they don't really exist in the building world.
Soldering in one form or another I have done for something approaching
60 years now - I have done wiped joints but as yet haven't found an excuse to try surface-mount solder .
"Glaziers" these days only install double glazing panels, no more (some mak e the panels). It's hard to find one that even cuts glass. Leaded glass wo rk is unheard of.
Fortunately leaded glass work is easy to have done, but it's specialist and is done by people who work in architectural leaded glass. Not general glaz iers. Not (most) art glassworkers.
Ask your local architectural salvage dealer who does their glass work - a l ot of which will be 1930s front doors.
Old lead is unworkable. If it's a piece of furniture you might repair one d amaged piece, but if it's decades old and outdoor, you strip all the old le ad off and rebuild the panel from scratch. It's _far_ easier and quicker (m ost of the work is in cutting the glass, not soldering the lead).
There are lots of glass-working courses around. It's not unusual to have th is sort of repair as a course piece.
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