Ship Repairs Completed

The repair of the ship panel has proceeded relatively quickly - fewer interruptions and more concentration. The whole is shown with the old pieces recovered in foil and the new pieces foiled and inserted.

The detail of the work before it is locked into place is shown here.

The completed repair was framed in zinc calme to make handling easier, especially if it is to remain standing in a window.

My recommendation is that it should be framed in timber and hung rather than propped up.

Ship Repairs, pt 2

Slow progress on the ship panel due to the tail ends of other projects. This shows the split in the panel and the two main/obvious breaks in the ship's hull. All the blue pieces have to be re-foiled, as they are so loose now. Teh yellow piece on the right of the ship needs to be removed to get the bow out.


The following photo shows the main tools I use to get the panel apart. I heat up the solder and use the cut up drinks can to separate the foil while the solder is molten. The lead knife helps to cut the excess copper foil from the glass. The brass wire brush assists in removal of the solder beads. The sal amoniac block is needed to clean the solder bit which gets very dirty from the patina.

Some of the broken pieces have been removed and taped together for reference in cuting the new pieces.

Here you can see the process of removing the bead, by heating and brushing away the excess solder. The drinks can then can help to separate the two foils. You can see the cleaned foil along the ship decks. The foil is heated and rubbed with the iron until a piece comes free. It is then grasped gently with the pliers and pulled away from the other foil as the iron makes the jointing solder molten.

Finally, the bottom of the panel is dismantled. I did break an additional two pieces with the heat that I was using. This is part of the risk.

Ship Repairs

A while back when I was in the midst of the big projects, I accepted the commission to restore a large copper foil panel. It is 1000mm by 610mm with a lot of detail. Not all of the spaces between the rigging lines are individual pieces of glass, but a surprising number are. A considerable level of skill is evident in the construction of this piece. There are foil lines of various sizes used, and there is considerable skill shown in the fitting of the glass.



The problems arose because the panel has been sitting, propped up in an window opening for a number of years. This has caused the panel to bow and finally separate mainly at the junction of the water and the horizon. I suppose many will say that this was an obvious design fault. Even though there are interruptions in the horizontal. It is these interruptions that took the force of the bending and broke at the places where the hull and the water "interact".

It is not only where the panel has separated that there are problems. This clear piece, high in the panel has cracked, probably due to the sharp angle at the bottom left of the piece.

The hull of the boat is where the most obvious work is required. Some glass is missing from the left (or bottom in this picture) and it is broken on the right (or top).

At the stern of the ship, a number of small pieces have been broken. This appears to me to be impact damage rather than stress related.

A small piece of the light blue has also broken near the area of separation, probably as a result of stresses.

I will need to think about how this panel can be protected from the same process working on the glass again. This will help me make the restoration in a sympathetic way and produce a strong panel.

In preparation for conducting the work, I have taken a rubbing. I find that this gives a reference point when sections have been taken apart. There is no arguing with the rubbing taken from the original panel. Then things you do have to conform to the rubbing.