Darlington Etched Glass

Leadbitter Glass was first established in 1994 and has produced Etched Glass and Victorian Etched Glass panels for homes in Darlington ever since. Though it’s one of the oldest forms of decorative glass, Etched Glass is increasingly used to produce stunning contemporary designs. Etched Glass panels are a popular choice for homes in the area along with upscale commercial buildings. Almost all panels we produce qualify for free delivery to homes in Darlington.

Our studio also provides Stained Glass, Bevelled Glass and Fused Glass to clients in Darlington.

After placing an order with us, you’ll receive our free design service – known as the Client Pages Service. With this, you’ll receive a Computer Generated Proof a few days after ordering. This shows what your glass will look like so you can see your chosen design in your custom glass sizes. It also gives you the opportunity to request design changes before production begins on your panel(s). You may decide that you want to alter a decorative border, add some extra flower petals or increase the size of a house number. We’ll make these amendments until you are 100% happy with the final design and you give our glass artists the thumbs up to begin production.

Your numbers up!

If you want to display your house name or number in door glass or fanlights, Etched glass is the ideal choice. Many homes in the Darlington area have top lights (transom lights) above their doors, the perfect place to display your etched house name or number. Etched house names and number panels are one of the most popular requests we receive, our glass artists produce hundreds of them every year! If your home has a transom window above the door, we can create an etched house number or name in your choice of font and decorative border if you would like one. We can also create etched door glass to match if required.

Browse Our Etched Glass Galleries

Our studio can produce almost any pattern in etched glass. If you haven’t found the right design for your home yet, head on over to our extensive Etched Glass Gallery for some inspiration. We have thousands of stunning decorative glass designs to browse which might be exactly what you’re looking for. Within our etched glass gallery, there are categories such as Traditional, The Edinburgh Range and Repeat Backgrounds, Modern, Victorian and many others.

How is Etched Glass made?

We never use ‘stickers’ on our etched glass panels. We produce our etched glass the right way, by sandblasting the glass so it is permanent and of the highest quality. You might find that some companies state they offer “Etched Glass” when they actually just place a vinyl sticker onto the glass, so no ‘etching’ has actually taken place. These stickers can turn yellow and even start to shrink after a few years of being exposed to sunlight. Companies may also offer to screen print the ‘Etched Glass Effect’ onto the glass but this also suffers from the same discolouration issue over time. Always make sure you are paying for an authentic ‘sandblasted‘ etched glass product for quality that lasts. You can see the problems encountered with fake etched glass here.

Our process

First, we cut a temporary mask to shape and overlay it onto one side of the panel. This stops the areas we want to remain clear from being etched. We then place the masked panel inside a sandblasting booth while coarse grit/sand is fired at high speed across the panel. Once the etching process is complete, the temporary mask is removed and the areas that were unprotected have now been etched. If the glass is single glazed, we then apply a protective sandblast coating to the etched side. If the glass is to be double glazed, the coating doesn’t need to be applied because the etched side will be protected within the unit.

Etched glass supplied to any home throughout the Darlington area:

Stockton-on-Tees – Middlesbrough – Bishop Auckland – Newton Aycliffe – Shildon – Billingham – Yarm – Eaglescliffe – Sedgefield – Ferryhill – Spennymoor – Thornaby-on-Tees – Ingleby Barwick – Croft – Hurworth-on-Tees – Heighington – Middleton St George – Sadberge – Summerhouse