For the past 30 years or so we have been doing restoration and repairs to the stained glass windows at Woodlawn Cemetery and Mausoleum in Santa Monica, CA. I have always considered it on honor to work on these magnificent stained glass windows. Especially since Woodlawn Cemetery is the final resting place of many of Southern California’s most well-known historical figures. These include. Leo Carillo, Glen Ford, Barbara Billingsley,Paul Henreid, Doug McClure, Jesse Unruh, and Abbott Kinney the founder of Venice, CA. Some of the windows we have had to remove and restore while others have only needed cleaning, minor repairs, and or reglazing. We recently completed what was going to be a relatively minor repair. There were five badly cracked pieces in three panels of a nine panel stained glass window. The procedure was to remove the panels and board up the openings with plywood. Then we would reproduce the broken painted pieces, and replace them in our studio. When we removed the panels and inspected them it was evident that there had been many poorly done repairs to the panels over the years. This was not evident at the original inspection as the window had an exterior protective acrylic panel over it, and we couldn't properly inspect it. The repairs had been completed from the outside. Probably prior to the installation of the acrylic, which was now badly crazed.
Broken Piece Mary Orrell Painting
Firing Glass in Kiln Leaded up pane
With the discovery of the true condition of the window the Cemetery staff agreed that we should completely restore the panels. The first thing we did was to make a rubbing of the panels so we could assemble the restored glass. Next we would disassemble the panels, clean them, and duplicate the broken pieces. Our wonderful painter (Mary Orrell) did as fabulous job recreating the original style. With the number of repairs it was difficult to ascertain the exact colors of the original window, so we kept the same texture and color of the broken pieces.
After Mary was finished painting and firing the glass we leaded up the panels, soldered them, and finally glazed them. The installation went well, although we found that at some point the exterior glazing in the the panels was replaced with wooden molding that was glued in place. We decided to glaze the windows with metal sash putty as they were when they were first installed. In our survey of all the windows in the Mausoleum later we recommended that this be the standard procedure on additional restoration.
Glazing in Panels Finished and installed
At a later date we will replace the old crazed exterior acrylic with tempered glass.
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