I do not believe I got an answer on this question. Have a clam shell with a broken or chipped base. Any suggestions on repair or material ?
Thanks

Craig you have some glass blowers in your area, you might give them a call and see what they have to say. They may be able to marry some new glass onto the old. Richard

That is a tough one for sure Richard, the old glass would be distorted I believe with heat. Thanks

That thick of a piece of glass would shatter with any localized heat of the temperature needed to 'weld' in new material.

Your best bet would to make an inner and outer form of a good portion of the base, then use those clamped to the 'open' portion so you could pour in some white colored epoxy.

Later . . .

Jim

Why couldn’t you fiberglass matt repair it ?

I did like Jim said to do on a Tok 36 glass top years ago. it worked pretty good.

Good idea, where would I get the white epoxy , or just get epoxy and color it ?

Get two part epoxy and a white colorant . . .

Im not sure how much you are willing to spend on repairing it. A lot of epoxies unfortunately yellow over time, some of them quite badly. I bought several and experimented with them, I ended up rejecting all epoxies because of this yellowing issue. A UV stable urethane would be a better choice.

Can make your mold from an undamaged area of the globe and then move it over to the damaged area. A cheap silicone molding material can be used, just be careful because the sulfur in wood can inhibit silicone from curing properly. If you use wood as part of your mold fixture, make sure its clear-coated. Extremely important to use the right mold release, or it'll never come apart and you'll end up breaking it more.

Not a small job, but pretty sure can be done.

Give me a call Craig if you want to talk about it....

I have one of Paul's Shoebox globe bodies - and it looks great.

Go with his recommendation on the Urethane.

Later . . .

Jim

This is a great idea, now just where to find the stuff. We use to use a two part mold making material. I still have some, land thought about doing inside and out. Then pouring the liquid into the mold so that it bonds to the glass. This way the rubber can just come off and be possibly used again.

Paul, Here is the mold I Made for the bottom of the shell globe. There are some breaks in one of the ones I had so this should go or should I say be put around the broken globe. I will then have to pour the resin through something to get it into the areas that the breaks are.

Craig, looks good, should work nicely. If you have a vacuum pump and a jar, its helpful to degas the resin before you pour it. Gets rid of the bubbles in the resin. The white doping helps cover them up, but still can cause issues. Some people pour on a stick to keep from getting more bubbles too.

I'd probably put a notch in it on the outside, top, for pouring the resin. Could stick a funnel in there of some kind to make pouring easier depending on how viscous the resin is. Also need the air to escape somewhere, another small hole on top, somewhere at the other end of the void is good. We also move the mold back in forth after pouring to try to work out the bubbles.

Bubbles really suck, we used to have them be a problem all the time. I'm worried about your mold trapping air, might take a few tries. I think the epoxies are more forgiving with bubbles I guess.

Good luck with it!

Paul

Thanks, that sounds really complicated.