Lead framed stained glass?

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steve1147

New member
A friend just brought me a bunch of old stained glass windows which appear to be leaded together in heavy strips. Gonna be messy to get it all out (just bust the glass). Does anyone know if this should be pure lead?
 
What ever the base metal is, there will be tin also, inasmuch as solder is used to join the pieces together during the process of joining them together. My sister in law constructed stained glass windows for several years.
 
Melt it down and start castin with it. If I am unsure how hard an alloy is I will hit it with a hammer and do the same with a WW alloy for a reference. It isn't super precise, but it gives me an idea how hard it is and how it should be used.

Or you could buy a lead hardness tester...
 
I'd save as much of that glass as I could. They don't make it like that anymore.
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Uhhh.......too late, just went out and busted it all into the trash barrel.
It was all an ugly shade of grape purple anyway in diamond pattern.
Guess I'll just cast it into ingots and hold onto it 'till I get a hardness tester, I've been just casting wheel weights or pure lead w/95/5/5, but now I'm starting to acccumulate some unknown alloys, been meanin' to buy one anyway. Got over 40 pounds of lead frames to melt down, and the price was right!!!
 
My neighbor makes church windows from time to time. After his last project, he gave me several pounds of the came clippings. I cast several hundred soft lead pistol balls and gave him a share.

If I were to come into possession of a quantity of scrap came from old windows, I'd run a hardness test after smelting the stuff. I suspect the tin content (from the solder) would vary from window to window.
 
The more joints the higher the tin will be !!!

But some of the channel stuff (forgot what it`s called) is hi in tin also !!!
 
Intricate patterns with small pieces of glass may be done with copper foil and solder and don't have a lead came (the channel stuff).
 
I ended up with about 30 pounds of ingots, and judging from the cratering and color, they're almost pure lead, with a slight dullness, probably due to the small amount of tin from the solder joints. More stash!!!
 
my goodness... I would have thought that you could have advertised the windows and sold them for exponentially more than the value of the lead you got from them. Most antique stores would have probably taken all of them off your hands.
Old stained glass windows sell fairly well, usually.
If antique stores gave you even 5-10 bucks apiece, "a bunch" of windows (5? 10?) would have netted you maybe a hundred bucks. At .80/lb for pure lead, that would be 80 pounds of pure lead?

Just my opinion... YMMV
 
Father in law used to do stained glass work...

I have a bunch of lead "cane" all I have is soft pure lead, but I'm sure solder joints could have tin, or might not, depending on the age of the windows... he also did the copper foil & solder for making lamps & finer detail items... newer cane might have some tin in it ??? but the stuff I have is very soft...

too bad about breaking the diamond shaped glass... it was probably worth more than the lead... FYI... to propane tourch works great for pulling this stuff apart, without wrecking either component...
 
I don't suppose it was kinda ugly shades and such like this??
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Ha! No, nothing like that, like I said "UGLY", I had and have no regrets of breaking the glass.
This was the type you see in people's 40 year old finished basement bar when they don't want their neighbors seeing them drinking down there!
 
:D That's a relief--I'm sure you did the world a favor then. I tend to cringe first and then go for details on some things. I don't know squat about stained glass, but I've seen people do some out-right shocking things with antique blades. I have a 350 year-old Japanese wakisashi that would be very expensive museum quality were it not for the fact some woman thought it looked real nice stuck in a house plant for decoration leaving 6" of blade pitted beyond recognition.
 
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