Yankees Stained Glass Lamp Repair

Another recent repair .. This one is a New York Yankees lamp.  The cap came apart from the dome and there were two badly cracked oblong pieces which required replacement.  Here are the repairs .. Click on any photo to enlarge for a closer look.

This is how the lamp came to me .. With the cap detached, two pieces of blue glass fallen out, and two pieces of the white cracked.

 

 Here's a close up of one of the two cracked white rectangles.

 

Before replacing any glass, the borders have to be clear of any residue remaining from old foil or solder.  Here I'm using "Goo Gone" to clean off the border.  I've also added new foil to it.

 The detached blue pieces were surrounded with old copper foil and solder which I removed by hand.

Many lamps such as these do not have ground edges on the glass.  The grinding helps the copper foil to adhere, and it makes the glass much safer for handling.  Here I'm grinding the edges.

 Copper foil is centered on the edge of the glass ...

 ... And pressed into place with a "fid" or a flat, plastic wand.

After the pieces and the border have been foiled, I tape them into place using blue painter's tape.  Its inside the dome, not visible.  Then I brush on liquid flux which enables the solder to flow correctly,

Soldering the pieces back in.

In order to replace the cracked pieces, I score them on both sides and then use the back end of the butter to tap out the remaining pieces.

Here I'm tugging out pieces using needle-nose pliers.

After the glass is removed and the borders are cleaned, I apply new copper foil as shown.  Then I trace the opening onto a piece of Manila folder.  This becomes the pattern for the new piece of glass.

The glass has been scored with the pistol grip cutter (the purple tool).  Now I'm using "running pliers", the blue tool, to snap the straight cut.  I do the same with the remaining two sides of the rectangular piece.

Now the replacement piece is in place, held there by blue painter's tape from the inside of the dome.

Now the two pieces of cracked rectangular white glass have been replaced.

Onto the cap.  The cap is often the weakest part of any lamp because it holds all the weight.  The borders of the circle had not been grinded during construction.  I'm using a hand file to roughen the edges of the glass to prepare it for copper foil.

 My husband Eric made a new copper ring for the cap and soldered it into place.

And here is the finished lamp!  Thank you to Wyckoff Lighting for passing this repair on to me.

Please visit my website to see my custom windows and repairs (click here).  And if you are on FaceBook, become a fan and I'll keep you up to date on all my stained glass projects.  Call me any time at 201-600-1616 or email with your questions. Thanks!