The Journalist Rings

Bless her, she’d been asked to write an article for next February’s Homes & Gardens (and she’d rung us five months early because she knew how busy we get …):

“I’m writing about buying and using stained glass and I’ve been looking at your website with great interest …

(What a lovely journalist, I thought.)

… I need to find out about the various options available to buy, and also who can restore them …

… Can you help me please?”

Her voice was friendly enough, but I must admit I was immediately on my guard.

Like you, I’ve seen plenty of cases where words have mysteriously changed their context, or had their qualfications left out, and that’s the last thing anyone needs when the subject’s stained glass restoration.

So we proceded as gingerly as Kennedy and Khrushchev discussing missile placements on the lovely island of Cuba.

And one of things we talked about was how stained glass can be re-sized.

It’s a familiar problem.

A piece made for one particular setting has been removed and must now be made to fit a new setting.

And I was duly reminded of this classic example from our casebook of stained glass adventures and challenges.

The Loving Couple

Some time back, our client approached us with two magnificent pieces of painted stained glass. Here’s one of them:

"Please make me 60 inches taller!"

Naturally, this elegant gentleman was accompanied by a demurely blushing damsel.

The task:

To transform these two pieces, each one measuring 12 inches across by 18 inches high,  into a pair of stained glass windows, each one measuring 26 inches across by 78 inches high.

Now, to perform this kind of operation, you have to respect the spirit of the original, whilst also taking into account the new location.

If I tell you that the new location was an ornately gilded dressing room within an 18th century mansion across the sea on mainland Europe, then you’ll see that a great many options were swiftly ruled out.

Our client being a person of considerable influence, we gave the matter our deepest thought.

And then we remembered our priceless book of leaded light designs from 1615.

Our personal copy dates from 1895. Here’s the splendid frontispiece:

How we found inspiration in an ancient Manuscript (and you can too)

Let me translate:

Book of sundry drafts

principally serving for glaziers

and not impertinent for plasterers and gardeners

besides sundry other professions

Surely this 400-year old collection of leaded lights would prove to be our inspiration!

We spent a happy hour reminding ourselves of these exquisite designs.

And then we came across this one here:

"Eureka!"

We were away!

The first task was, with surgical precision (not to mention our ruler and set square), to use the original scale drawing to map out the full-sized cut-line. (Those of you who’ve mapped out “simple” diamond quarries will know that a job like this takes time and patience.) You can see here how, in the middle, we prepared a space for the original stained glass (from which we had taken a “rubbing”):

The full-sized cut-line

The second task was, with equal care, to cut the glass. Here we used glass that was made specially for us by our nearby glass blower. (Machine-rolled glass would all have been too uniform and lifeless.)

Finally, the assembly: with a geometric pattern like this one, the leading had to be exact …

Careful leading for ...

… with neatly abutting leads (or else the soldering will fail):

... a client of considerable Influence

Once cemented and polished, we had a look:

Finished

Our lips began to quiver. Our eyes went moist. We knew the day would soon come when we would be obliged to return the glass to its rightful owner.

It never gets any easier to say goodbye!

At least these windows had once been ours to look at.

Original Designs from 1615

It’s no exaggeration to say these designs are extraordinary.

Just imagine if more stained glass windows had such richness and complexity.

Are you interested?

Then scroll up and click the link in the far-right sidebar.

"Not the BBC again!?!"

What a headline! And it’s all true.

Here’s what happened …

David and I were working away, minding our own business, and finishing off the fourth set of brand-new windows that we’ve been making for a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, when the phone rang.

It was the BBC.

(Again!)

A top-notch producer wanted to know if old glass was thicker at the bottom.

The reason is, glass has a name for being a “super-cooled liquid” (just as Williams & Byrne has a reputation for being a super-cool stained glass design studio …)

"Are you telling me that my bottom's fat and droopy? Grrrrrrrr!!!"

And many people think this fact explains why, when you look at old church windows, for example, you often see bits of glass which are thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top.

Their idea is that, over the centuries, the glass has dropped and sagged.

Andthis BBC producer was ringing us on behalf of Dr Chris Smith.

Dr Chris (as his friends call him) is the anchor-man for an excellent radio show, “The Naked Scientist”, which airs once a week.

(I suppose nakedness doesn’t matter when it’s radio.)

The show covers all the latest scientific breakthroughs.

So how, you might ask, does stained glass fit in?

Well, there’s one section called “Stuff and Non-Science” where they examine a common idea and find out whether or not it’s really true.

Health & Safety Rule #1 - Do NOT allow a Naked Scientist into your stained glass studio

This week The Naked Scientist wanted to find out whether old stained glass really droops.

David and I don’t believe it does.

And here, courtesy of the BBC, are our reasons.

Be prepared: the telephone line is slightly rough. (After all, we are in the tranquil heart of the English countryside – wild and isolated territory that it is.)

You have two fine options.

You can skip to the best bit and just hear me.

Or you can learn all about horses, earthquakes and exomic sequencing and then come to the 20th second of the 22nd minute where … The Naked Scientist grapples with the Stained Glass Designer.

It’s your choice:

1. Skip to the best bit and just hear me, which is right here.
2. Download the whole show right here. (You can always fast-forward the 20th second of the 22nd minute.)

The full program was originally broadcast on 9th March 2009 and is copyright of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Note this: if my voice sounds strange, just remember, it’s not every day that you get to talk with The Naked Scientist.

"Just let me get my hands on him!"