A lot of the work that we do–and that we’re doing now–is repair work. Stained glass is glass, after all, and any glass will break if it’s not handled the right way. A lot of people use stained glass for outside windows and doors, and anything that the wind and weather touch can find itself cracked and broken. Too, the way the panels of a stained glass window are joined is usually metal, and most metals have fun when the get to play in the rain.

One repair that we recently got done–and there are others in process and in our queue even now–was a hanging panel showing a Southwestern scene. When it got to us, it looked like this:

As the picture makes clear, there was a fair bit of damage to the piece. Many of the individual pieces of glass were cracked, with some chunks outright missing, and there was damage to the joints between pieces that doesn’t show up well in the image. Complicating matters was something we run into fairly often; a lot of stained glass pieces that come to us are older works, well executed when they were made but using materials no longer available. Some of the glass in the panel can’t be found anymore–but we knew what to do!

Kevin started by carefully disassembling the piece, removing the cracked and broken bits of glass one sharp-edged shard at a time.

With the broken pieces removed, Kevin considered how best to proceed. As noted, some of the glass in the original is no longer available. We had some in stock from previous purchases, and for others, we were able to make close matches from our inventory. Some, though, we did not have on hand, and we didn’t have a close match for. What Kevin did to address that, then, was to replace more of the original glass with as close a match as was available, preserving the artistic unity and integrity of the piece. We and our client were happy with the results:

Right now, we’re working on a door that desperately needs some attention, but we’re always happy to look at your needs and see what we can do for you! If you’re in the Texas Hill Country and you’ve got some stained glass that needs fixing, or if you think art glass would make a fine addition to your home, give us a call at 830-890-1509 or email us at hearts.desire.stained.glass@gmail.com!