Curran Glass Studio has been bending lamp panels for over 40 years. The following tips will help you get the best possible duplicate panels, with a good match in both color and size.

 

 

Send a good panel for us to work from.  

To create a good duplicate, we need a good original to work from. Try to send one that is original to the fixture and representative in color and texture.

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Clean the panel well and label it on the back with your name and how many you need. If your panel is reverse painted, don’t put tape or labels on the paint--adhesive can pull it off.

 

We will do our best to match your panel in color, texture, size and shape. We inventory over 3,000 molds and over 4,000 sheets of colored opalescent glass in nearly every texture and density. If your panel is unusual glass, and you have some, send the glass along. If not, we’ll do the best we can. 

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Sometimes bent panels--mostly from table lamps--will crack, run, or split after they’re removed from their metal frames. We believe the use of too many high-wattage light bulbs causes stress in the panel. Once the panel is removed from the lamp and the weight displacement changes, the panel cracks in a way very similar to a heat crack.

 

If a panel cracks this way while in our possession, we will re-make it at our expense. If a panel cracks this way during shipment, you could file a claim for breakage with your shipper, but we don’t advise it because the problem was probably inherent in the glass prior to shipment. We do advise filing claims if the box your panel was shipped in shows signs of abuse and the glass was clearly shattered. If you take good care in packaging your panels for shipment, we rarely experience any problems with breakage.

 

There are two common ways to insert glass panels in light fixtures. One is with clips that fold down over the glass. The other involves a brass U-channel that wraps around each panel and is soldered into place.

 

Although you can often re-use the existing brass U-channel, it is better to re-wrap the new panel with a new piece of brass. But most of the brass available for this purpose is too stiff for you to wrap it around a complex bend, so we recommend annealing the brass to soften it first. To do this, heat the brass with a propane torch until it is red-hot. Let the brass cool naturally until it is room temperature.

 

If the duplicate panel you receive from us is a bit too large, either wet-sand or wet-grind the glass to size. You can also groze the panels down, but it’s safer to grind them. Before we ship the new panels to you, we do our best to grind them down on a 120-grit diamond grinding wheel that is cooled with a steady stream of water.

 

If you find that you need more panels than you ordered, please re-order within 2 weeks of receiving your first order. We keep patterns and molds set aside for a couple of weeks before “filing” them.