Restoring Stained Glass: a New Art for Old Craftsmanship

Stained GlassAntique stained glass windows were first crafted at the hands of Egyptian and Roman artists 2,000 years ago. Adopted and popularized by the Catholic Church, as component of the Holy Roman Empire, stained glass windows have remained commonplace in churches, and homes to a lesser degree, for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Common in homes as of the turn of the twentieth century across the United States, there is plenty of aging stained glass windows in our older homes today. Fortunately, there are methods to restore stained glass to the original condition. Now everything from fading, chipping and cracking can be seamlessly restored by a professional.

First, the window will be traced to make the reassembly process at the end easy and accurate. Then disassembly of the stained glass window begins. Very carefully, professionals take the window apart piece by piece and each piece is cleaned while broken or damaged pieces are separated for further repair.

A variety of repair methods are used depending on the severity of the damage. Small scratches in the window can be repaired with a painting technique, while whole missing pieces need to be replaced with new stained glass. When all the individual pieces have been fixed, the window is reassembled using the tracing.

If the former frame was made of led, typically restoration experts will replace it with pewter or iron. This new stained glass window will be brightener, look better and be exponentially less drafty. If it’s a hundred and fifty years old, it can now last another hundred and fifty years.