Restoration
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The stained glass windows at Trinity United Methodist Church in Darlington, South Carolina leaked so bad that the church members had stapled sheets of plastic over the windows so that the rain would not blow through the windows during the service (photos 1 and 2). They had another studio company reseal the windows on site. It is practically impossible to properly reseal stained glass windows on site. It does not solve the problem of leaky windows. It only leaves a mess on the exterior of the windows (photos 3 and 4). The same company ‘restored’ their Jesus, Knocking at the Door window. But that company did not rebuild the window with the same profile lead as the window had originally (photo 5). Plus, when they installed their ‘restored’ window, they did not scrape the frame and did not use the correct caulk (photo 6). The caulk which is less than two years old has not bonded well with the sash and frame. The church hired us to restore their windows and fix their problems.

In a restoration, the first order of business is to map their facility, photo document their stained glass windows (photos 7-15), and assess which windows are the highest priority. When we remove the stained glass windows, we assign a number to each sash (photo 16) and that number stays with the window through the entire restoration process (photos 17-19). We disassemble each window and clean each piece of glass (photos 20 and 21). Then we rebuild each panel making sure that it is rebuilt with its own glass. We use the exact same size and profile of lead as the original (photos 22-25). In our restoration work, we even scrape and repair the wood sashes and frames (photos 26 and 27). The finished windows (photo 28) are reinstalled into their repaired frames with true putty glazing (photo 29). The sashes are reinstalled at the church and painted. The finished product looks as good as the first day it was installed (photos 30-33).

 

1 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	2 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	3 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
4 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	5 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	6 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
7 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	8 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	9 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
10 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	11 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	12 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
13 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	14 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	15 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
16 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	17 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	18 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
19 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	20 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	21 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
22 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	23 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	24 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
25 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	26 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	27 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
28 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	29 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	30 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC
31 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	32 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC	33 Trinity United Methodist Church Darlington, SC