Mistakes Were Made

On Friday, Ethan and I went out to Urban Ore in the East Bay. We hadn't been in several months.

I found this damaged but very cool glass cabinet. Based on the type of glass, and the cast iron legs, I'd guess it's victorian.

 I absolutely had to have this thing and at $75, why not?

They actually knocked $10 off the price to $65 because there were 2 broken panes. While I was there, I bought two old window panes at $20 a pop to harvest replacement wavy glass. 

It would be a crime to replace the glass with regular modern plate glass but let me tell you, harvesting the old glass is an enormous pain in the arse.

You see, if there is still wavy glass in a window pane, that means that the glazing is most likely equally as old, which means it's hard and brittle and really hard to work with. Sometimes, when the gods are smiling at you, the glazing comes off like above.

Other times, when they're not, you need to use a blow torch to soften the stuff and then cut it away (scary because too much heat will crack the glass).

I had this happen to me twice. Yes, twice. The large panes are really fragile and this one was still painted in place after I got all the glaze off and broke while I very gingerly tried to free it.

In fact, I had to go down to Building Resources to get a third window. Luckily their price was half that of Urban Ore's at $10.

Unfortunately I broke this one as well :(  So right now I'm only 1 for 3 on the glass harvesting.

I will be headed back here tomorrow and as you can see, they have plenty to choose from.