When it's Too Dark to Garden - Restoring a Window for a Friend

Or - How to repair  an old window in a few (13) easy steps and a month of Sundays...

My friend and gifted musician brought me this window with several pieces broken  and asked "Can you do anything with this?"

It's a fairly simple 120 year old panel. The leads were so worn and weak that they all had to be replaced.  The most difficult part was trying to find matching glass.  Fortunately, my pal and stained glass guru, Florence, had glass that was very similar.  Okay, the first real step is to cut replacement glass.   If the broken pieces are present, use contact paper or masking tape to put them together to use as a template to mark and cut the new glass to fit.


1. Make a rubbing of the window so that when you pull it apart, you'll remember how it goes back together.

2. Remove all of the old lead.  (It's there in a pile on top of the picture.) Do not throw the old lead in the garbage, it needs to go to the hazardous waste area of your local solid waste facility.  You can see the new clear pieces of glass placed on the two ends.  Once the old glass is cleaned up it'll look a little closer in color to the new pieces.  The broken border pieces were easier to match exactly.

3. Soak all of the glass pieces in a powerful cleanser (I use Orange Sol) for a day or two to help soften what remains of the old putty, dirt on the glass, and years of paint on the edges.  Clean, scrape and dry the glass.

4. Re lead the piece.  Note that the rubbing is used as a guide beneath the panel.

All assembled and ready for step 5. Solder the joints on one side and then the other.  Important: curse because you left the wider solder tip you wanted to use at the glass studio where you teach but decide to make do with what you have because you don't want to drive for 40 minutes to get the right one. Worry the whole time you're soldering that you made the wrong decision and wish that you'd made the trip.

6.  After soldering the joints, you can either wash the window to remove the solder residue or go right to puttying  (also called cementing.) Putty must be forced into the flanges of the lead on both sides to waterproof the window and make the whole thing stronger. I thin the putty a bit with mineral spirits and use a brush for this but some people apply it with their thumbs which takes way too long for me.

7. Apply whiting or plaster of paris (one can also add fine sawdust) which helps set up the putty, removes excess flux (used in soldering,) oil, and putty.

8. Wait for a week or so until the putty is at least leather hard.  Moving to the next step too soon will cause the putty to ooze out and you'll have to let the panel dry, clean it up, re putty, and wait again.

9. Take a skewer or sharpened chopstick and run it along all of the leads on both sides to clean up any putty remaining in the points or outside the flanges of the lead.  Make sure that you don't remove any putty from underneath the flanges.

10. Rinse and wash the panel.  (We use Jolt Cleaner) Small panels can be done in a sink or bathtub but for larger sizes, like this one, I move outside and use this metal grid (slotted wood is preferable because it won't scratch the leads and you don't have to be as careful.)  Rinse all the soap off.

11. Apply black patina.  If you do it when the window is wet and then wash it off, it can be poured on and spread with a brush.  Rinse the patina off.

12. Allow the window to air dry.  You can speed it up by using a hair dryer if you're in a hurry.  In the process, the leads will look oxidized and even rusty and you'll wonder what you've done.  Fear not, when you buff the window,  it'll  be fine. You can use a natural bristle brush like this



The lead and zinc will now be shiny and black and you could stop there or go on to step 13. Apply stained glass finishing compound which must be allowed to fully dry. Then you'll buff the window again and use a towel to finish it off and remove any extra wax that may be close to the leads.