stained glass restoration

Today we finished installing our big restoration project. Very exciting, lotta work, different from doors but still stained glass.

Looking through an opening from the outside into the inside scaffold and the opposite window on the far side of the chapel.

Looking down two lancets from the outside

Installing the last glass panel.

The scaffold from the outside. Everything is safely installed. Whew!

All in a days work

Here is a clip of one days work reinstalling window. The panels shown here are 15 of 45 panels being reinstalled. All the panels were removed one year ago, completely rebuilt and now we are reinstalling them.

leading a stained glass panel

This is one of 32 leaded glass panels that will be installed in a church clerestory window. The glass is very dark, looks black in the photo. This is because the glass is heavily painted and is made up of very dark colors. Very unlike the sidelite or doors I do that use mainly clear glass. You can't tell from the video, but the sheet of paper is a leading guide and shows a outline of where each piece of glass is supposed to go.

leading 2 sidelites

These two sidelites are part of a 8 foot double door entryway going to Chicago. A real monster entryway. The glass is made up of rondels, heavy and weak seedy.

Traditional Stained Glass

Here is a different project I've been working on. This window is part of a much larger window that will go into the Washington National Cathedral. The techniques and materials are the same I use in the entry doors I fabricate at kuhldoors. There are, however, some significant differences. The biggest is the glass. The glass is dark, deep and painted. There is no clear glass it is all colored glass. The glass does come from the same source I get my glass.

This is a close up of one of the pieces. All the dark space is black paint. The artist uses a cross hatching pattern to dampen down the brightness of the glass. This piece was cut, painted by the artist and then fired in a kiln to permanently adhere the paint to the glass. These steps were all done by someone else (my father and the artist). I am only helping my father out by leading, soldering, puttying and cleaning the panels. 

Each painted piece is assembled to make up a larger picture. This is the base of a tree trunk. 

Here is the whole panel. In this window there are 44 panels. 

cool beans.

Restoration work

Somewhere south of Michigan. This is an annual pilgrimage I make every January to help my father on an ongoing restoration project at the chapel. We spend about 10 days removing a window. The window goes back to my father's studio in Reston, Virginia where it gets completely rebuilt. In August we reconvene at the chapel to reinstall the window. 

Here is an outside view of the clearstory windows. 

This is Jacob, the window we took out. There are 27 panels in the 3 lancets. If you can make out the dark horizontal lines they are 'T' bars holding up the individual panels. Each panel will get completely disassembled, cleaned and  rebuilt. 

The scaffold from the inside.

My grinning mug taking out the top pieces in the tracery.