Wavy Glass
I am restoring a pantry circa 1890 in my rowhouse. It has beautiful wavy glass. I am also adding new cabinetry with glass fronts. Is it possible to use old wavy window glass from interior or exterior windows and cut it to use in new cabinetry? I have read in the forum that people often…
I am restoring a pantry circa 1890 in my rowhouse. It has beautiful wavy glass. I am also adding new cabinetry with glass fronts.
Is it possible to use old wavy window glass from interior or exterior windows and cut it to use in new cabinetry?
I have read in the forum that people often change out their old windows for new and don’t know what to do with the old windows. Unfortunately all of the windows I am changing out are cheap aluminum with new glass.
Is reuse possible?
Does anyone have experience with this or have suggestions?
Dear P.T.,
I would like to respond to your comments: Bendheim encourages the reuse of salvaged materials whenever appropriate; however, when salvaged antique glass is not available or not optimal, we recommend Bendheim Restoration Glass® as the first choice.
The projects utilizing our Restoration Glass® speak for themselves, to name a few – the White House, Monticello, Mount Vernon, the Jefferson-Davis Home – all buildings of significant historic importance… I hope you would agree the professionals involved in such restoration works would not compromise their choice of materials. They chose Bendheim Restoration Glass®.
I also hope I can use this forum to alert all readers to the existence of poor quality imitations of Bendheim Restoration Glass. Your description “crude, like glass made in the 15th century†does not depict either one of our glasses. We advise customers to look for the Restoration Glass® label, a registered trademark of Bendheim, placed on every sheet of glass leaving our east and west coast facilities. Another way to ensure you receive authentic Restoration Glass is to order the glass directly from Bendheim’s website at http://www.RestorationGlass.com
Jen Miret
Bendheim Communications Manager
jmiret@bendheim.com
We use old glass salvaged from new windows all the time at Olek Lejbzon & Co. While the new restoration glass is new and without scratches, the two types, “heavy restoration” glass is too crude, like glass made in the fifteenth century, or the “light restoration” glass has too little waviness, unlike what was used circa 1860 – 1910.
You will save money using the old glass, and end up with superior appearance compared to what is available today.
Olek Lejbzon & Co.
http://www.oleklejbzon.com
Peter Triestman
lejbzon@verizon.net
The old glass you refer to can be bought new–it’s generally called restoration glass. New is better, as the old glass becomes pretty fragile with time.
Bendheim glass carries it–you can check their website.
I did the exact thing. I bought a very large pine cabinet with the top section composed of two doors with many small windows separated by mullions (sp). The guy gave me a break on its price because several of the old windows were broken. They had this same wavy glass with little imperfections. The stain glass guy on 5th Avenue wanted $60 per window just for the glass! It took me about a year before I came across some guy changing out his old wood sash windows and he gave them to me for free. Same color, same wavy imperfections. Took me about two hours to carefully remove the old glass, cut it to size, and putty in the new windows. A perfect restoration for zero