At last I have completed the repair and installation of a large window in the Lime Tree Hotel, Fort William.
This is the outside of the window as I came to it on a Spring day. You can see the damage has been caused by the hinged panel blowing open an banging against the wall, shattering the glass. In addition to the pieces you can see are broken and missing there are many more cracked and damaged. When I got the panels out of the silicone that holds the panels to the metal frame, I found that at least 85% of the glass was broken. So it became a complete rebuilding and re-leading job, instead of a simple repair.
Still, as you can see from the view of the mountains at the head of Loch Linnie from the front of the Lime Tree, it was a nice day and worth the 2.5 hour drive from Glasgow.
The repaired panels installed give a dramatic end wall to the gallery that is part of the hotel complex.
This has been a protracted process as the glass is modern and should be available. The client wanted the same glasses to be used in the panels to be repaired, to ensure the continuity across all eight. The glass was ordered from various outlets and most of it received after a delay. Meanwhile the rubbings were converted into cartoons, and the panels taken apart and the glass that was able to be salvaged was cleaned. The glass that arrived was cut and prepared.
However one glass that appears in three of the panels was not available in the UK. This held up matters until the client (possibly in exasperation) said just put in a sympathetic glass. That permission enabled me to finish and install them in a further nine days (five of them waiting for the cement to stiffen). I called Jean Campbell of Studio Six on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula to help with the installation. Three hours after arrival, we were off to lunch, and then a 3.5 hour drive back to Glasgow because of the holiday and commercial traffic.
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