Posts in Restoration
Restored Landing Light, Huntly

The in-situ repairs we carried out on this large Victorian geometric panels were tricky because of access, and the corroded state of the lead. Located on the third floor landing of the old Strathbogie Hotel in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, access was only possible from the inside. The upper 2/3 of the panel were in good condition, but the lower part of the timber frame had rotted and, as a consequence, there had been a bit more movement in the lower panel.

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Restoration, DomesticGordon Watt
Restored Vestibule Door, Whitehouse, Aberdeenshire.

The wing of the house in which the door is located was destroyed by fire in the 1930's, and subsequently rebuilt. I suspect this window is a remake of an original, because the leading varies slightly from another, clearly older panel with a similar design. When it was remade, 3/16" lead was used and, as a result, the panel had simply stretched over the years.

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Restored Door panel, Aberdeen

These relatively simple-looking panels caused me all sorts of grief in the studio. First of all, despite their handmade glass and small flemish quarries typical of neighbouring properties, they had steel-cored lead all through them. The main difficulty, however, was that the handmade coloured glass ovals were extremely variable in thickness, being almost 10mm thick in some sections. In the end, I had to split wide heart lead around the widest sections, ensuring the original chipped borders were covered to hide any distracting conchoidal fractured edges.

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Restored Vestibule Door, Fochabers

This large door panel was damaged during some decorating work. It had some beautiful handmade coloured glass pieces and large, clear sections, some of which were damaged. We managed to source good matches for the clear glasses, but had to plate some pale amber onto a textured clear to obtain a match for one particularly unusual glass.

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