Repairing leaded lights

[El Greyo]

Hello all

We have a few iron framed casement windows with leaded lights. One is in need of some minor repair now and I expect that the others will also need maintenance over the years.

Now it looks like it's something that I would be able to do, given the right materials and some reading up and/or advice. No doubt it's a fiddly and time-consuming job, but I'm reasonably adept at that sort of thing. So is this something that a competent amateur would be able to do?

Does anyone know where I can get the materials (cames, fixings etc) and if there are any guides to leaded light maintenance that would help.

Thanks

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

Hi,

When you say 'minor repair' what exactly does that mean? Cracked glass? Distortion? Rusting bars? Any chance of a photo?

I've tinkered with leaded glazing, and there's more to it than meets the eye. If you're keen to have a go I'd recommend getting hold of a scrap panel from a rec yard or glaziers and practicing the techniques on that first.

 

[El Greyo]

Hi Andrew

The main problem is that a few of the fixings that hold the edge of the lead panel to the metal frame have gone. The ones that are still there are painted over and at the moment I'm not going to disturb them. The fixing fix onto the metal frame through holes in the metal frame and then wrap round the outside of the lead.

Sorry, unlikely to get photos for a while, I'm rarely home when it's light and it's an upstairs window. I've made a temporary repair for now but I hope to repair properly in the spring.

Good idea to get a scrap panel to practice on.

 

[DJH]

This topic takes me back about forty years or more when I used to make and repair lead lights with my stepfather. I never carried on with it as the demand dried up a bit in the 1970/80s and after that I found keeping shards of glass out of the moulding sand was impossible. They don't go together very well.

We used to cast our own came in an iron mould using clean lead, not scrap, as any solder or tin would make the lead harder and 'sugary'. We had a mill with different profile dies for the type of came we needed. I think these tools went for scrap before I could rescue them.

As well as soldering irons, which I did rescue, we used a methylated spirit blow pipe with a low temperature blowpipe solder and a Russian tallow candle.

This doesn't help you at all but it brought back some happy memories for me.

 

[LadyArowana]

This doesn't help you at all but it brought back some happy memories for me.

For someone who only joined the forum recently you have made remarkable progress in embracing the spirit of much of what goes on here. :lol:

It won't be long before you find yourself checking in from a mobile device and having people comment "are you chatting with those sad people that restore old houses"?