A challenging project came in recently. I was asked to repair a stained glass lampshade with curved panels. As I don’t make curved glass and only work with flat sheets of stained glass, I contacted a company that I know, which makes glass lamps of different shapes and sizes. The man there thought that the lamp in the photos I sent him was actually one that his firm used to make a long time ago. So I asked him to make some replacement curved panels to fit.

This seemed a perfect solution until the curved panels arrived. They were a lot smaller than I needed! So it turned out the lamp they used to make was not the same as the one I had in for repair after all.

Undaunted, I came up with an alternative plan for the client. Though the two new curved panels were too small, and also had a different curve to the lamp panels, I thought I could cut them at the point where the curve no longer matched. Below that point, I would make smaller pieces from the remaining curved glass and then finish the bottom edge with flat pieces of glass in the same colour of stained glass.

This configuration would need to be matched all round the shade, with the addition of a ‘fake’ pattern created from copper foil that would be soldered and blacked to fit in with the rest.

I was also able to reuse some of the original broken glass piece that was left.

The border glass was another problem as it was a swirly colour that had been discontinued. Most of the cracked glass pieces were still there, but some were loose shards that had to be fitted into place like a jigsaw. I decided that the best option here was to glue the shards and cracked pieces, as they were fairly well hidden behind the intricate metal banding. The small areas that were still missing were covered with copper tape on the inside and soldered and blacked so that they didn’t let light through in the wrong places.

This lamp had great sentimental value to its owner and I was pleased to be able to reuse as much of the original glass in the repair. While it certainly doesn’t look the same as it did when it was created, it is now useable again and can be refitted (it is an uplighter). The client actually said she preferred the new design to the old one! It turned out to be a good solution to a difficult problem.