New leaded lights and stone mullion repair?

[FamilyWiggs]

Hi PPUKers. Long time no see.... real world has kept me away. Have I missed much? Lots of nice new posters by the looks of it.

SHMBO is fed up with the draft from the windows in the room below... they're 70s single pane with stuck on lead cames. Yuk. They're also rotten and the glass has dropped, leaving a roaring gale in cold/windy weather.

I'd like some nice leaded lights made up. So to my questions:

a) square or diamond?
b) how to fit - assuming hydraulic lime mortar the metal frames to the stone surrounds? Are there other ways?
c) any suggestions of people who could make these. I need 6 openings done - 3 are 12"x24" and 3 are 12"x2"
d) any suggestions on conserving the mullions would be helpful.

Oh and don't look at the horrible cement pointing. It's not my work and it's on the list!

Thanks all

Robin

 

[Flyfisher]

Personally, I prefer the look of square rather than diamond leaded lights, though I have no idea about historical precedents or achitectural suitability. Hopefully someone else can offer better advice before you wonder why you bothered. :wink:

(welcome back BTW)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

SHMBO is fed up

Not least with the spelling. It's surely SWMBO?

 

[angrybird]

dear me, I am so uncool I had to google it :lol:

 

[TheForge]

Personally, I prefer the look of square rather than diamond leaded lights, though I have no idea about historical precedents or achitectural suitability. Hopefully someone else can offer better advice before you wonder why you bothered.

I believe the diamond shape was the more common earlier design and dominated throughout the 17th century, with square or rectangular panels becoming more common later. The diamond shape is more economical allowing more oddments to be used, especially in the part panes towards the edges of a casement.

 

[88v8]

Imho diamonds look better in those narrow frames, as they emphasise the vertical line. Squares might suit a cottage, but perhaps less suited to your Frankensteinian Folly.
Metal casement putty, of course.

Mullions, brown underlayer, grey over, not sure what needs to be conserved here. :?

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

Slap in some PVC windows, render over the top of everything else. Paint it white. Lovely job.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Very nice to see you back on here FW, so naughty of you to stay away so long!

For the mullions there are fillers -lithomex. I haven't used it but it was mentioned on here recently as being suitable for stone repair.

They're very characterful and the house would lose something if they were replaced in my opinion.

As for who can make your casements, a pity that my local company, Architectural Bronze Casements, aren't nearer. I had a tour of their factory and was beyond impressed. The casements are double glazed but delicate and pretty. I got a quote for the tiny bathroom window here - £600 - including fitting - haven't done anything about it yet but for such a high quality job I thought an OK price. They may come to you, not sure.

http://www.bronzecasements.com/heritage.html

Like FF I prefer square leading patterns and associate diamonds with nasty bungalows for some reason.

 

[agbagb]

These look fairly close,

 

[88v8]

As for who can make your casements, a pity that my local company, Architectural Bronze Casements, aren't nearer. I had a tour of their factory and was beyond impressed.
http://www.bronzecasements.com/heritage.html

Emailed them this morning to explore the possibilities for our cottage, where I am laboriously making secondary DG to stop the condensation (OK, perhaps to move it somewhere less visible, but permit me my Illusions) and a chap from Heritage phoned me this afternoon.

Three immediate plusses, and two minuses (leaving aside the no doubt huge cost),
The plusses are that unlike Histoglass, previously referenced,
http://www.histoglass.co.uk/
these people can supply DG units with embedded bogus leads. OTOH, every Tom Dick & Harry can supply those. However, the second plus is that Heritage can supply them with wavy glass. Exactly how wavy, was rather vague, I would need to see some samples to decide whether the waviness is sufficient. Float glass DG units with bogus leads, no thanks.
And of course the third plus is that their metal frames are bronze and will never rust.
The minuses... they've never tried painting their metal frames, which for aesthetic reasons I would wish to do externally. I'm sure it would be OK, with a suitable non-ferrous-metals paint, but still, I hate being the first to try it.
The second and bigger minus is that their DG units are fronted with bronze silicone. Now, I don't care how well it's done, silicone is never going to look like putty, and it can't be painted. In contrast, as you can see from their website, Histoglass have an isolation system for the glue line of their DG units, so that paintable putty fronting - special putty - can be used.

Anyway, I'll get an estimate from Heritage for the various 1970s windows I'd consider replacing, if it looks like a runner I'll start a separate Topic.
Apologies for hijacking this one.

Ivor

 

[Me!]

Several of my diamond leaded panels were falling apart completely. I spoke to a local specialist, and he quoted something approaching £200 per square foot to make replacements for me, but during my chat with him, his exact words to me were "it really isn't rocket science, why don't you have a go yourself?".
So I did.
Let me start by saying that before doing this, I had only attempted to cut maybe half a dozen bits of glass in my life, and that I had a very high failure rate when doing so!
I started by reading this very clear account - http://www.myhouseextension.com/leadlight1.htm . I think because the chap writing it was also a beginner, I found it very easy to follow.
I then bought a few bits of greenhouse glass to practise my cutting. This stuff costs hardly anything, so it is worth doing to get confidence in cutting. This practice taught me several things -
1. The cutters with a diamond tip are much better than the ones with a wheel.
2. Always clean the glass first before cutting using a bit of kitchen towel and methylated spirit.
3. Dip the tip of the cutter in sewing machine oil before each cut.
4. Get a metal straight-edge to guide your cuts.
5. Get a really solid and completely flat surface to work on. I use an offcut of kitchen worksurface.

I also found that with a diamond pattern, the only way I could get the finished panel to come out exactly the right size was to draw a full size pattern first on a big sheet of paper showing the exact sizes and positions of each bit of lead. I then fixed this pattern to my worksurface and assembled the glass and lead on top of the pattern to make sure it all lined up correctly.

The other thing is the soldering technique which is very different to the way electrical or plumbing is done. With electrical or plumbing, it is essential to heat the bits of metal you are joining and to use this heat to melt the solder. With leaded windows, it is far more a case of melting the solder on the tip of the iron, and then 'blobbing' this onto the bits to be joined whist applying a bit of heat from the iron to melt it into the lead came rather than just sitting a blob across the gap.

And that was it really. Even the first panel I ever made was perfectly fine and it has now had several years of use without any leaks or any problems.

Give it a go, it is a lot easier than I thought it would be.