leading a side lite

 Leading, that crucial first step in joining the individual glass pieces together. Here I am leading a simple leaded glass side lite, which is part of a bigger leaded glass entryway. 

After the glass has been cut, grossed and filed to the size of my paper patterns, I lay it all out according to where each piece goes in the final panel. The circles are clear hand blown rondels and do not need to be cut. Surrounding the circles is clear, heavy seedy glass. All the glass is handblown. 

This is a poor photo of the lead came profile. There are two techniques used in stained glass, the copper foil technique and the lead came technique. I use lead came in all my work for various reasons, mainly because that is what I was taught.  Many people who take a stained glass course learn the copper foil technique. Looking at the profile of the lead came you can see a grove on each side.

These grooves or slots is where the glass fits into. Again a poor photo but you should get the idea of how the glass fits snugly into the groves.

Starting at one end of the leaded glass side lite,

I secure the first piece of glass against the outer edge lead. The edge lead is what surrounds the whole leaded glass panel. It gets buried into the wood frame of the door or side lite and therefore is not visible after I install the glass panel.

Next I place a strip of came lead against one of the edges of the glass. I line up the next glass piece against the other side of the lead came and ...

measure and cut the lead came to the proper length.

The third piece is the rondel shown here already wrapped in lead came. Again it is secured against the two other pieces of glass.

Guess what comes next, right, the fourth piece.

I could go on like this for all 30+ pieces but I think you get the idea.

Finally the glass panel is assembled and ready for soldering. 

one leaded glass door, 72 days

Since the middle of September everyday I think of it I snap a photo of my front door. You can see a slide show of my efforts on the right hand side. All the glass in the door is clear, handblown glass. As you can see depending on what is going on behind the glass, the glass is ever changing. I've had clients call and ask for the 'green' door when they are really looking at a photo that was taken in the spring time.

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.

Christ Church - Norfolk, VA

Here is Christ and Saint Luke's Episcopal Church in Norfolk, Virginia. They have some windows that need 'light' restoration work. I say 'light' because they do not need to be rebuilt nor taken back to the studio. All the work can be done onsite. The windows are beginning to buckle and if something is not done soon will buckle to the point where they need major restoration work. Right now we can add some additional barring and stop the buckling. Pretty straight forward. We worked on the two top windows you can see on the side of the chapel.

Scaffolding, about 40 feet high.

Close up of the panel reinstalled with the additional bars. These windows have an interesting history. They were all built by a studio in Europe before the start of WWI. As the windows were in transit the war broke out. The windows got as far as England  where they had to stay in storage for the duration of the war.  

Here is my portable studio set up in a small nook underneath the window.

My grinning mug happily working away. Took about 4 full days to do 2 windows. 

One up Web - Installing

Now comes the moment of truth. Because the panels are so big I do not know what they will look like in full transmitted light until they are installed. I also find out how good my measurements are. 

Not bad.

One up Web - Finishing

The fun stuff over now for the grunt work. First puttying. Puttying is a pain. You have to use your thumb to push the putty in the gap between the lead and the glass, both sides. Putty is good. Once the putty hardens it adds a great deal of strength to the panel.

After making a big smear, gotta clean it up. I use saw dust to scrub the panel clean, both sides. 

Finally, I add brass bars on the backside of the panel to add strength. These bars are bent to fit the contours of the lead lines and are 'invisible' from the front.

One up Web - Assembly

Cutting done, time to assemble the panel. Each piece is surrounded by lead came cut to the size of the piece. 

Watch it grow...

.... and grow...

After all the piece are assembled, I do the soldering. The solder is used to attach all the lead pieces together. Every joint is soldered, both sides of the panel.