Wednesday Afternoon
Since 2 of our students (Cheryl and Danielle) can only come every other week we are only having an afternoon class today. So what got accomplished in our afternoon class? Plenty, as you will see.
Julie was unsure if her lamp would end up home with her or not today, but with a little extra effort we got the job done. The lamp turned out to be stunning and I’m absolutely certain that she’s extremely happy with it. We used a bucket (a trick of the trade) to make sure the lamp was perfectly round (there’s nothing worse than a lamp with a flat spot) and once we had the cap attached to the top and the brass channel applied to the bottom it was rock solid. Just 8 lines were left to be soldered and they went quickly.
Julie made this lamp for a floor base that she had picked up a while back and although it took the better part of a day to determine the correct size for it, everything worked out fine in the end. I thought it fit the base perfectly and that her choice of glass couldn’t have been better. And to think that I was the one who was pushing her to use the tan color for the center sections to give it a more authentic Frank Lloyd Wright look. Boy, was I wrong. I wasn’t able to get a full shot of the lamp on the base, but I did get 2 good pictures of the lamp lit up in the dark and with the lights on in the shop. Here’s the finished project. Remember, this lamp stands almost 6 foot tall.
Kim got her corners attached to her window and then got her bevels cut and tacked on. If you’ll note, you’ll see that her fancy corner pieces actually cut into her 4 rows of bevels. The window could have been designed so the corners end up on the end of a bevel, but this effect looks wonderful when used with fancy flowing corners. The hardest work on this window is behind Kim now–All that’s left is the final border. Because of her fancy corners she’ll need to work a little harder at the last border because it’s not a straight cut all around. Still, the extra effort will really show in the end. Kim isn’t afraid of working a lot harder to make her window look extra special. Here is Kim’s window as it stands today.
Ellen also began working on a beveled window. She went with a complete inner beveled border surrounding a beveled Fleur De Les. Her background glass is called Seedy and it resembles clear glass with raindrops in it. Over the years I’ve had many students refer to it as ‘rain glass’.
Ellen had picked up her bevels (55 of them) on Monday and had them all wrapped before she got her Wednesday afternoon. I can only assume she spend most, if not all, of Tuesday night wrapping glass while watching TV (that’s the way I do it). When she came in she laid it all out, cut and ground her 8 corner accents, tacked together the center Fleur De Les and then cut and ground the harder top half of the background glass. If you think all that was hard to read, just imagine doing it all in one class! It wasn’t until after she left that I realized she had accomplished most of her window in just one class. She’s only got 8 pieces left to cut and then a final border cut from french crackle. Don’t be surprised to see this window finished, save for the soldering, next week.
And that about wraps it up for this week. We have 2 new students starting next week during our Wednesday evening class. Watch here for more butterflies!
Paul