Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? There’s a reason we’ve been quiet, though. It’s that we’ve been hard at work on a special project, one that was meant as a surprise gift. But the gift has been given, and it was gladly received–which means … Continue reading A Special Surprise: The Steele Window
We’re happy, always, to do custom work for our clients, creating new pieces to suit their needs and wants. We’re happy, always, to have you reach out to us so that we can make your heart’s desire come true. But we’re also happy to restore the works of others that have suffered from time and rough handling, such as the piece we did most recently.
Not long ago, a client came to us with a panel that had been taken from a more-than-century-old barrister cabinet. True to the name, the cabinet had been moved several times in its lifetime in Mexico and the United States, traveling as circuit-riding attorneys used to do. In its most recent move, however, it didn’t fare as well as in the past.
Admittedly, a barrister cabinet needs to show what it holds. Clear, rather than colored and textured, glass is desirable therefore; it’s hard to read book titles through swirling opalescence. Fortunately, we tend to keep clear glass on hand, and so it was no difficult thing to separate the pieces of came, remove the broken glass, cut new pieces to fit, and reassemble the panel. Backed by our guarantee, the repaired piece went back to its owner–and the owner, by all accounts, is delighted with the work!
It’s always a pleasure to make people happy with our work! And if you’d like us to make you happy with it, reach out at the form below or give us a call at 830-890-1509. We’d love to hear from you!
And, for your writing needs, get in touch with Elliott RWI!
Yes, it’s been a while since we’ve updated here. But we’re back again, and we’re glad you’re here, too!
At the moment, we’re at work on a piece for someone we’ve known for a long while, now. And what we’re doing for him is setting up a panel that will be on display outside–which makes for some interesting design challenges that we’re happy to address.
Broadly, we’ll be putting together a panel to fill the frame. The panel frame itself will be rough-cut cedar, and the glass-work will be sandwiched between protective layers to help keep things from breaking. It’ll hang on a system that will allow it to be removed, too, in case one of the Hill Country thunderstorms that pops up now and again will be a bit more…intense than normal and would be a bit more of a threat to the panel. (We’ve seen baseball- and softball-sized hail come through these parts, and one such hailstone’ll ruin your day quick.)
As might be guessed, the client we’re working with at the moment’s a musician. The panel reflects that profession, and we were happy to put our own art to work representing that art:
We’ll be updating with progress on this as we can–and if you’d like us to compose a panel for you, give us a call at 830-890-1509, message us via our “Contacts” page, or use the contact form below. We’d love to hear from you!
And, for your writing needs, get in touch with Elliott RWI!
We don’t just do windows, you know!
Recently, we were contacted by a client who wanted us to take a look at and repair some lanterns in their possession. There’s a lot of damage to address, both to the glass and to the structures of the lanterns themselves, as the pictures below show.
What’s really interesting with these is that they are clearly oil lamps, and the smoke and soot that will inevitably come from using them will impose some things on the repairs; whatever we do has to be something that can be cleaned easily, for one thing. Too, while getting glass to match what’s in place should be relatively easy–while textured and colored glass gets made in individual batches, the plain glass of the lanterns’ panels is often mass-produced and thus easier to replicate–the etching will take some time and attention. Fortunately, we’ve got the tools and techniques on hand to make it happen–as we’ll show in the coming weeks!
We love a challenge. If you’ve got one, please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page or the form below and see what all we can do for you!
And, for your writing needs, get in touch with Elliott RWI!
Projects just keep coming our way!
The most recent one to start with us is coming to us from Eldorado, Texas, a small city in the western Hill Country. Now, as folks who’ve lived in the area can tell you, we may not get a lot of rain in our part of the world, but when it does come, it’s like to come in abundance–and with company, namely hail. In Kerrville, we’ve had hailstorms that left the town coated in little ice pellets, standing a foot deep in some places, and many’re the folks who’ve had close encounters with quarter-sized chunks of ice coming from the sky. (It ain’t comfortable.) As might be imagined, such storms–and we’re always glad of rain–wreak havoc on windows, including such stained glass pieces as our soon-to-start project, the Frey Repair.
It’s clear even from these photos that there’s work to do; several panes need replacing, including one that seems to’ve had a hole punched clean through it by a particularly ornery hailstone, and there might be more to find once we get a good look at it in our shop. The window needs a good cleaning, too–but between getting that and the repair, when we get it back to the client, it’ll be a glorious little bit returned to another Hill Country town!
We’d love to hear from you. Please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page or the form below to see what all we can do for you!
And, for your writing needs, get in touch with Elliott RWI!
We do a lot of repairs to existing stained glass work, as we’ve shown in such pieces as the Cassidy Door and the Carpenter Beck Door. Less often, but no less happily, we take on work like the Smith Panel Combination, where we reconfigure existing glass into new designs. Sometimes, though, we get a project that involves a bit of both–like the Neubauer Reconstruction.
What had happened with this piece is that, while it was decently constructed–the outside edges are of sturdy zinc came, and there is some reinforcement in the piece–it was removed and moved, and handled badly amid that move. It’s not the first time we’ve encountered such a piece; we got one in one time that had been stepped on. But it’s always a shame to see it happen–especially with so vibrant a piece, and one that clearly was made with some attention to detail. Note how the streaks in the “water” largely align, suggesting the flow behind the koi; it’s not bad work at all, though it was treated badly later on.
We would, of course, be happy to restore this piece to its original glory; it’s the kind of thing in which we delight, not least when working with such a vivid piece as this one. But the client wants something a little different; what we’ll be doing is reconfiguring the rectangular panel into an oval hanger, preserving the koi and the oyster and as much of the scene as can remain while framing the two in as an oval. And, instead of the zinc came with the soldered-on hanging points–they show up in the first picture of the obverse–we’ll be framing the oval in H-shaped lead came. The glass will fit into the inside; double-jack chain will be fitted and secured into the outside, allowing for a more even distribution of the hanger’s weight within its structure and facilitating its display in most any window.
We’re happy to do this kind of work for you, too; if you’ve got some you’d like attended to, let us know below!
And, for your writing needs, get in touch with Elliott RWI!
Well before the Ides of March, a contractor reached out to us to set up a working relationship. We were happy to accept it, and we were happy to get a job from that contractor, one we’re calling the Carpenter Beck Door. What’s happening with it is that there’s a remodel going on of the client’s home, and the door needs some work. Some of that work will be done by another group; the door itself is going to be refinished, and while we’ve got a solid hand with woodworking, we’re not carpenters. But what we will be doing is attending to the large glass panel in the door.
Fortunately, there’s not any broken glass in the panel (so far as we know). That means we won’t have to track down matching glass, which is a helpful thing (but if some is broken, we’ll address it, of course). What we will have to do is address a number of breaks in the came–the lead strips that hold the glass panels in place–and the putty, as the adhesive holding the glass securely in the came is degraded or, in some places, absent.
What we plan to do is take the panel out of the door; it will help us work on the glass and such while letting the woodworkers do their bit–and not have to worry about the glass as they do. We’ll replace the came that needs replacing and re-putty the whole panel; if some of the putty is going, the rest is likely not far behind, and it will be good to have it all renewed, in any event. Because the door will still be an exterior door, we’ll be adding reinforcement on the inside, giving the panel additional stability, and we’ll be installing Lexan on the outside to further weatherproof the panel. We try to build our glass to last!
If you’ve got a door in need of some attention, we’d be happy to help. Please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page or the form below to see what all we can do for you!
And for any of your writing needs, check out Elliott RWI!
We’re happy to have done the work we’ve done, but we’re far from sad that there’s more work for us to do–like a new project we’ve begun that we’re calling the Turner Transom. For this project, we were approached by our clients, folks who have some property in our own beautiful Texas Hill Country. They asked about our putting together a transom window so they can get a little more of the kindly sunlight for which–along with wildflowers, barbeque, and high school football–our part of the world is rightly known. They gave us the dimensions of the piece we’ll need to make–36 x 12 inches–and we took our first steps: drafting a design:
We ran that by the client and got the approval to start work on it–because we don’t get going on a custom piece for any client without their input and approval. For us, for a piece like this–one we’ll be putting into a metal frame, since a transom stands a good chance of needing to take some stresses–moves from a design draft to what we call a cartoon. That is, we print the layout out at full size, because having something in hand is a whole ‘nother thing from seeing it on a screen, and working in glass is as much about the feel of it as about anything else. That much done, we began making our reference pieces, giving ourselves something to lay under glass or over it so that we can get a good view of how the individual pieces will work with the specific glass we’ll end up using:
This part of the process is important for a couple of reasons. For one, it gives us a standing visual aid as we compile a piece of visual art; seeing what we’re doing while we’re doing it helps us make sure it’s done right. Architects and engineers work from blueprints, writers work from notes, and painters work from sketches; we take our cues from other arts to work in our own. For another, each piece of glass–not only the ones we make, but the materials from which we make them–is unique. Not every piece of blue glass, not even every piece from a single production run, will look exactly the same, for example, and making those differences make sense in a transom window–or any other panel–demands care and attention that we’re more than happy to give.
As with the Smith Panel Combination about which we posted previously, we’ll keep putting out updates about our work on the current project. We think it’s important to bring people into what we do, show a bit of the expertise and experience that goes into crafting works of stained glass that will add to a home’s value and enrich the lives of those who live in it–and we hope you continue to enjoy the ride!
We’d love to work with you, too! Please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page or the form below; let’s talk about meeting your stained glass and art glass needs and getting you your heart’s desire!
A lot of the work we’ve been doing has taken the form of repair and adjustment of such large pieces as front doors, cabinet inserts, and window panels. But we got started on the back porch, putting together little suncatchers, commemorative pieces, and standing figures that hang inside windows and sit on shelves, catching the light that comes in and shining brilliantly, beautifully. It’s good to go back to that kind of thing now and again–and we’ve done that!
When we’ve done live shows, such pieces have been popular. (For good reason–they make excellent gifts, for one thing!) Also popular have been our school- and activity-related work, like the piece below–and we’ll note that when we do these kinds of projects, we work hard to get the colors and textures of glass just right. Details matter, after all!
We’re going to keep working on this kind of thing, so if you’re interested, we’d love to hear from you! Please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page to see what all we can do for you!
We’re proud of the work that we do, and we want to share that work with you! So, as we’re getting started on a new project, we figured we’d bring you along for the ride and show you something of a work-in-progress view of things as a new repair and alteration job gets started. This’ll be the first in what we hope is a series of posts that’ll show you how we go about doing what we do–and what we can do for you!
The project, which we’re calling the Smith Panel Combination, is a fairly typical project for us in some respects. Our client has some older stained glass pieces that need some repair. In the photos below, taken in our shop after we got them home, a few bits of glass that’ve cracked show up. Too, the panels, done almost entirely in Tiffany-style, show some bowing where the glass has clearly been subjected to flexion and other pressures–and where it will break if something’s not done.
A couple of complications are already evident. One is the sheer size of the panels, given their construction; they’re large pieces, and the technique used to build them in the first place is one we’d normally only apply to smaller works or smaller components of larger pieces. We’ll be addressing some of that as we move through the work; we want to be sure that the piece we return to the client will hold up over time and be something that the client’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren can look at and still see the beauty of the light coming through the class.
The other major complication is that, although the panels are akin, they are currently separate pieces–and the client wants them combined into one larger window, framed in cedar, for installation. Again, the pieces are akin; they clearly already belong together. However, they’re not designed, in themselves, to be two pieces of a single whole; harmonizing them to fit together will be an artistic challenge. But we’re ready to face that; indeed, we welcome the chance to show what we can do!
Please, give us a call at 830-890-1509, or message us via our “Contacts” page; we’d love to talk about meeting your stained glass and art glass needs!
Read about the continued progress of this project here!
Heart's Desire Stained Glass 