More Restorations

A delight for me at the moment is the start of a small restoration of some stair windows in a William Leiper designed house.  These windows are fixed directly into the stone above a sloping roof.  The owner took advantage of the erection of scaffolding to repair the roof to have me come to restore broken pieces of glass and to try to eliminate the amount of water coming into the house from the windows.

Taking glass out of stone is always difficult without breaking the edge pieces of glass, hence the tradition of one or two lines of narrow glass around the perimeter of the window, as these can be replaced without affecting the whole of the window. With the help of a friend and one of his tools, we managed to get the windows out without a great deal of breakage.

A more local appreciation of William Lieper

Float Glass Experiments

It is well-known in kiln forming circles that float glass is inclined to devitrify with long, slow or repeated firings.  I decided to try to take advantage of this for a panel.

I shingled the strips of float and fired them at 835C for 10 minutes.  I expected a striped result with devitrified surfaces alternating with clear cut edges.

I didn’t get it, though.  Instead there were areas of mild devitrification, but no strong bands.

top, general view

View of the top ends of the strips

General view of the bottom

Detail view of the bottom ends of the strips

There was some evidence of devitrification at the ends of the strips where points were formed. 

Some pointed ends showing devitrification

Even when viewed in detail, there is little evidence of devitrification.  I continued, to do a slump, but even then, the tin bloom and devitrification did not show strongly.  Sometimes when you want an effect, you are unable to provoke it.

Repairs in Clevedon

Even where regular maintenance is undertaken, there are accidents.  Doors seem to take the most punishment.  This house in the Clevedon area of Glasgow was subject to damage.

Even though it is set back from the road and with a gate, the glass got broken in a few places.

This is a large entry way with a grand hall behind it.

The door of course had a new break and a few others needed attention at the same time.

In addition, the fanlight above the door was rattling, although there were no breaks.  This was re-0cemented in situ.

A view of the completed repair from the inside.

This house was built in the period 1870-1890.  When compared to the entrance at a house in Bearsden built in the period 1910-1915 

[Bearsden   ] you can see that exactly the same design was used.  This shows the large studios did recycle designs, even though in this case 20-40 years later.