Glass Tips & Tricks 

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

Repairing A Stained Glass Angel By Making Our Own Glass

This is the type of repair that I don't care for very much. This is because you start with a cheap figure that sells for 15 to 20 dollars, it costs $45 to fix it and you still end up with a poor, gifty item.  


But it had sentimental value to our client and that made it worth rescuing.

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I didn't have the glass that would match the angel for the repair, so I fired up the kiln and made my own. 


The first try was a failure. I stacked pieces of white and pink on top of clear with spaghetti stringers on top of clear. They were quite warped during melting. 

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Going into the kiln, the second attempt, with the glass pieces underneath the clear sheet looked pretty good.  


I fired the glass to 1500 degrees so I got a good flat result. The ends were quite thick.

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You can see that the second firing was  better than the first, although I didn't get as many pieces of colored glass in the second piece.

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Here's a comparison of the broken piece and the home made piece. Next time, I'll get it even closer!

The original glass is called fracture-streamer glass and it is often very brittle and breaks in unexpected ways, making the craftsmanship required to cut it an art in itself.

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I had to redo the entire angel figure when soldering it together.  


I think the drawing that the angel inspired my grand-daughter Aurora to create is even better than the original stained glass angel.

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The completed repair turned out well. And the client was happy with it!