Stained glass windows get repairs at St. Peter in Medina

Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – Jody Geary, an employee with Bovard Studio, Inc. in Iowa, works on one of 16 stained glass windows at St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church of Medina. Geary is putting in aluminum framing to allow for ventilation of the window.

Geary said without ventilation heat is trapped between the window and a protective cover. That heat corrodes lead.

Some of the window sills also have rotted wood that will be replaced.

Bovard Studio arrived in Medina on Tuesday to start working on 16 windows at St. Peter, 1355 West Ave. Bovard has four crews working around the country. The crew in Medina will finish the job next week. They were in Wichita Falls, Texas, before coming to Medina. The next job is near Chicago.

Alfredo Reyna is supervisor of the three-man crew in Medina. The windows are all receiving onsite restoration, including a coating of a mixture of linseed oil, turpentine and Portland cement, which fills some gaps in the lead.

The glass will be polished and a Plexiglass protective cover will be replaced with 4-inch plate glass. The new cover will allow more light, making the windows brighter when viewed inside the church.

This window will be brighter after restoration work to be completed next week.

For more on Bovard Studio, click here.