Repair of a curved window



I'd driven past this window many times over the past 30 years and always thought, "that would be one heck of a window to repair", because it was curved and consisted of all beveled pieces. Well, the phone rang one day and the window needed repair - again. It turns out this 100 plus year-old window had been repaired before, probably several times, and not very well. Seven of the beveled pieces had been replaced with regular, non-beveled window glass. The zinc came was bent in places and silicon had been used to fill gaps. Besides having a broken pane, the window was also falling out of its wood frame due to the bottom section of the frame coming loose.



Close up view of one portion of the window



Close up view of another portion of the window. Shims were put in to compensate for the sagging wooden frame.



After numbering the glass pieces and photographing the window, I disassembled it. I made cardboard templates for 8 beveled pieces to be re-created and mailed them to a beveling company in southern California. The original zinc came was too far gone to reuse so I also ordered new came.



My original plan was to rebuild the window flat on my work table then set it back into its curved frame. After repairing the wood frame, I cut a piece of 1/8" thick white board to the proper size. This was going to be my template to build on. When I set it in the frame to check its fit I thought, "maybe I can build it right in the frame then slide out the white board". It was worth a try. I had rebuilt several traditionally flat windows in their frames before.



From previous experience I've learned that rebuilt windows don't always exactly come out to their original size so I did a "pre-fit" test using the old window pieces and the new came I ordered. Sure enough, I had to make minor changes in the perimeter came pieces for a good fit.



Rebuilding in frame supported by white board.



After soldering all the outside came joints, I carefully slid the white board out. The window was now self supported. I replaced the wood strips that hold the glass into its wood frame, then flipped the entire unit over and soldered the came joints on the inside.



I masked off the wood around the window then puttied and applied "whiting" (calcium carbonate) to the window to help the putty harden.



Front side puttied and whiting applied.



After vacumming off the remaining whiting, I dulled down the new, shiny came with a patina to make it match the other windows whose came had naturally darkened with age. After a thorough cleaning, the window looks as good as new.



The repaired window back in place.