Large Chandelier Restoration- Before/After

Nearly a year ago now, a client brought in a 48" diameter chandelier they had purchased at a salvage shop. They were building a house and wanted to feature this lamp in their dining room, but it was in a rather sorry state at the time!

The chandelier as it arrived

All of the panels were edged with lead, which is not nearly supportive enough for such a heavy lamp. The lead was basically spaghetti, held together with far too much solder and little else. There were also many broken pieces of glass, the putty was mostly gone, there was a broken weld in the steel undersupport, and the crown was completely destroyed (yes, it's supposed to have a crown! You can see the lead at the lower left under the top of the lamp, that was at one point the crown). Plus, the wiring was an orange extension cord which was cut (!!) and barely attached to the light fixture with bare wires!

The first step in restoring this poor chandelier was to dismantle the whole thing, remove all of the edge lead, replace or bond the many broken pieces, and re-edge every panel in zinc.

All of the side and skirt panels repaired, re-edged with zinc, and puttied. We puttied every piece including those that didn't need repair, as most of the original putty was gone. You can see the crown being rebuilt at the top left.

Once all of the panels were ready (and the broken weld on the undersupport repaired), it was time to start reassembly. Sounds like the easy part, but despite careful measuring and making sure to keep all the panels in the original order, it didn't fit! As originally built, the tops of each side panel were too narrow and the bottoms too wide, and it had been attached rather loosely to the undersupport. The seams near the top had been filled, often with unmelted solder, to cover the gaps. In order to get things to fit, we had to cut one side and one skirt down slightly. Then it was time to solder, and what an undertaking that was! In order to prevent solder from dripping downward rather than filling the seams, it was necessary to support the lamp at some pretty wild angles. At one point Janelle was up on a stepladder, half on the table, contorting to get the crown soldered.

Side seams soldered, attached to the underskirt using copper wires on the inner seams.

Because the skirt panels also had gaps, we used brass stripping to cover the seams.

The skirt mostly soldered, and the crown taped and ready to solder.

The precarious-looking (but actually very stable) rig we set up to finish the soldering on the skirt and crown relatively parallel to the floor.

Janelle, ready to solder, admiring (?) her setup.

Once the soldering was done, it was time for a final patina and cleaning!

The completed lamp, unlit.

The completed lamp, lit. And yes, we did replace the wiring!

All told, this project took around 10 months (and probably several grey hairs), but the finished result is a beautiful and sturdy chandelier that will last many more years!

This blog is something we're trying, in order to share our projects in more detail than is possible on social media or in the site gallery. If you enjoy it, please let us know!

Happy creating,

Jack