Antique Glass Matching

[Monkey's Uncle]

I have a 30's vintage lamp with a few missing panes. None of the of what I can find matches the color and style of the lamp. All appear to be not the correct shade of red... too much blue in the color. Also, the original glass apears somewhat crude in its formation... "not perfectly flat". I have found some glass that sort of approximates the "shape" but the color is definately not the same. Is there another source or glass or a vintage glass source? What about dye kits for existing glass to change the shade of a glass I might find close in color?

[Ryan]

Matching glass can be difficult. If you are taking it to be repaired, a lot of places have their own resources to match glass. When we repair old pieces we do tell the customer that there is no guarantee in a perfect match.  However, there are some glass manufactures that can make you custom glass, but it will cost you at least your right arm, maybe your left too. Part of it is that you would have to buy a full run of glass (yikes).

I would be afraid to take old glass and try to melt glass on top like fusing because that is really not what was done when the glass was originally made.

So, was that clear as mud?

[Monkey's Uncle]

I was hoping that there were places like "junkyards" that sold glass that could be used. I also wondered if I found something that was approximate in color that there was some sort of dye or stain that could be applied to tweak the color. A friend of mine even suggested using plastic since you can buy kits at a local craft store to pour your own "panes" - plasticast? Something about that just didn't sound right but I believe that I could approximate the glass appearance (waves in the glass surface and bubbles within the glass) and get the color just right with a bit of experimentation.

Comments?

[Ryan]

Comments?    :

Dont get caught being a monkey's uncle!