Apollo Stained Glass: 2020

Wednesday 23 December 2020

A 'Magic' Christmas To One and All!

From a Victorian Magic Lantern slide.

Monday 23 November 2020

A small upgrade!

I recently restored this panel which had a large single pane section of arctic and lead overlay strips (lower right).

The background glass is a beautiful old glass called Muffle, the pattern varied greatly over time but the original pattern was a repeating daisy shape with great movement and bounce!

We took the opportunity to keep the beautiful glasses but alter some features of the design making the panel more elegant and balanced...

Inserting supporting glass in the rebate at the front cut down on reflections and meant that you could really appreciate the lovely glass.

Armorial Panels

Following up on that last post, here's a few more 'befores', the panels were in a pretty bad way...

When cleaned, re-leaded, re-soldered and cemented these panels were incredibly beautiful - the clear glass in the background had a gentle distortion and the hot colours of the old Muffle glass in the shields really blazed in the sunshine.

Saturday 1 August 2020

Little Heap of Horrors

Before it was banned red lead (lead (II, IV) oxide) was added to cement to make it rock hard. Mostly you come across the odd violent orange fleck here and there when dismantling old panels but in 11 armorial panels I am restoring it seems like they tipped their stock of red lead in both powder and liquid form into the panels...

Nightmare on red lead street!

Sunday 26 July 2020

A hint of Rennie Mac!

It was a pleasure to work on this job in Dulwich, a simple design but with a lot of style...

We used some old glasses to match the original side panel along with some beautiful hand made opaque glass and hand spun roundels.

Wednesday 22 July 2020

Castlefield Hotel Manchester

Back in 2012 I visited the Castlefield Hotel in Manchester and came across these beautiful panels in the chapel / quiet room. The set of panels had a really unique style and so much energy in the design. I love the way that different techniques are used; cast glass roundels, painted and acid etched detail. At the hotel nobody knew who made them and for the last 8 years I have had them on my website asking if anyone knew. Finally I found out as I joined the recent webinar given by Martin Donlin for The Worshipful Company of Glaziers. There I saw early works in the same distinctive style and contacted Martin to see if I was right! Turns out I was and Martin had not seen the panels since he installed them (his first public commission) and was delighted to see them again...

and I was equally delighted to get some of Martins books in the post as my reward!

Saturday 27 June 2020

Nautical theme

Recently completed this panel which sat in between 2 earlier sets of panels I adapted / restored / made new! One a beautiful old pictorial panel which came from a pub not surprisingly called 'The Ship', with newly made fanlight above. The other set of panels (door and corridor) incorporated the house motif of 'reed and ribbon' replicated in various decorative features across the house.

This panel needed to work with both designs with the customers being keen to continue the nautical theme. With this in mind we kept the same layout as the reed and ribbon panel, enlarged the borders, a compass was used for the central area and the Carrick Bend rope pattern used for the corner features.

Panel before fitting.

For the compass border we used a semi opaque streaky glass which changed greatly in different lights.

With the amber streaky glass the ropes seem to glow!

One side soldered!

To see close ups of the ship look here and to see close ups of the 'reed and ribbon' design look here.

Saturday 20 June 2020

Space Age New Cross!

I recently completed this traditional door set in New Cross. The stained glass is a copy of the original street design, part of the Hatcham Manor Estate but with a difference as the customer wanted something a little quirky and fun mixed in. Being a cat lover and also an admirer of the fabulous retro style work of El Gato Gomez we found some shapes that would blend with the traditional painted quarries and that on first glance you might possibly overlook but pause a while and you will get a surprise....