Things You'll Need:
- Paper
- Pencil
- Hand saw with blade for cutting metal (if there is a zinc frame that needs to be cut)
- Safety glasses
- Glass cutter
- Glass grinder
- Glass pliers
- Glass cleaner or rubbing alcohol
- Copper foil
- Soldering iron and solder
- Flux
- Paper towels or cloth rags
- Carnauba wax
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Step 1
Remove the section of the frame holding in the broken piece if your piece has a zinc frame soldered on it and the broken piece is along the edge. Use a small hand saw with a blade for cutting metal to cut the zinc in two places along the frame. You want to remove as little of the frame as possible. Be very careful not to run the blade into the glass, or you will break the saw blade.
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Step 2
Heat the soldering iron and melt any solder that was holding the frame to the glass. You will want this edge of the piece to hang over the edge of your work area just enough that the melting solder can drip to the floor. Lay some newspaper to catch drips. These drips are very hot, so wear shoes.
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Step 3
Carefully remove the zinc piece from the glass with pliers.
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Step 4
Remove the glass from the copper foil using pliers and your soldering iron. You may need to melt the solder from around the piece until it releases the glass. If you have trouble with this, use the glass cutter to cut the piece of glass and tap it to break it into pieces and pull it out.
If you are removing an interior piece of glass that cracked, cut it and tap it till it breaks into pieces. Be very careful not to tap any of the pieces around it so you don't break another piece. Then you can carefully pull the broken pieces out with pliers. -
Step 5
Use the soldering iron to continue melting the solder so that you can pull off the copper foil that was around the piece of glass you removed. Be very careful not to pull any copper foil off the surrounding pieces if you can help it. It is almost impossible to get copper foil to stick to these pieces again, even with a lot of cleaning.
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Step 6
Make sure there are no lumps of solder around the edges where the new piece will be placed.
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Step 7
Place a piece of paper underneath that area and draw a pattern for the piece on the paper. Cut this out and use it to trace the pattern on the glass, and cut the new piece of glass out. Grind it to fit in the space.
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Step 8
Wrap copper foil around the edge of the glass piece, making sure it is even on both sides. Brush flux around the seams, and solder it in place.
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Step 9
Replace the piece of zinc frame if one was removed.
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Step 10
Clean and wax the glass and frame again.
