Glass Tips & Tricks 

Newsletters from our past converted to fresh articles about stained glass.

Cleaning And Adding Patina To A New Stained Glass Panel (revisited) 

We've done an article before on cleaning a window, you can see it by clicking here.  I felt that we should demonstrate the steps that we currently use on nearly every window we do.  

We start by gathering up a brush, water in a bottle, Kwik-Clean Spray and CJ's flux remover.

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First, Jeanne pours a little CJ's Flux Remover. It removes and neutralizes flux that is left over from the soldering process. She pours out enough to be the size of a quarter.

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Then she adds some water so that the CJ's will mix with it and clean better.

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Then she uses the brush to scrub the panel.

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She creates a lot of suds as she scrubs back and forth in all directions.

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Then the panel gets wiped off.

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She then sprays the panel with Kiwk-clean flux and patina cleaner. She sprays it with enough so that the panel is wet all over.

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Then she dries it off, this application of the cleaner prepares the panel to accept patina better than when we skipped this step.

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Then she pours a small amount of patina (this time black) to the surface of the window.

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And she uses a very small piece of cloth to spread the patina over the lead lines, adding more patina as needed. 

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Then she sprays with Kwik-Clean fairly heavily to neutralize the patina and she dries it off.

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Then she pours a small amount of Kempro finishing compound. She takes a clean rag to wipe the compound over the panel.

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She lets the compound dry.  

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Then she polishes the dried wax off by vigorously rubbing with a soft dry rag.

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The rag will pick up a lot of color as the panel gets buffed.

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The finished panel glistens once it's squeaky clean and polished.