Weeked Workshop
Our ‘test run’ of a weekend workshop was held on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend workshop is equivilent to our standard 5 week class but everything is compressed into 2 days. You have a choice between 11 different windows to make and after a half hour lesson in cutting class we get down to business and start cutting. I call this past weekend a ‘trial run’ because we only had 1 student (we can handle up to 4 students at a time) which allowed us to see if our time assumtions were correct involving making these windows. Below is a detailed description as to how things went.
Jack arrived right on time for out 11 o’clock start and we got right to work. We handed him a glass cutter and had him cut his first piece of glass. He cut straight cuts and curves followed by a crescent moon shape successfully and we then declared him ready to begin his window. All in all the glass cutting lesson took about a half hour.
Jack picked a geometric design made primarily of clear glass and bevels. The border was going to be cut from alternating purple and blue glass. The use of bevels cuts down on the amount of cutting that will be required for the window as they are cut to size and ready to insert into Jack’s window. Here’s the pattern with the 12 bevels in place.
We decided to take an ‘inside out’ approach to cutting this particular window. We cheated a bit by cutting our pattern pieces for only 1/4th of the window. We did this because those same pieces are cut 4 times to make this window. These are Jack’s first 8 pieces cut out of clear rough-rolled glass laid out on the pattern in their respective places.
We had 8 pieces to finish cutting the main window which would leave us with only the border left to cut. Jack used a clear glue chip to finish the center of his window. All in all, Jack had no problems cutting these pieces. The center pieces took some time to cut only because there’s a natural tendency to worry about the glass breaking incorrectly. After you’ve cut a few pieces correctly and you get a feel for the glass you tend to move quicker and worry far less. Jack was able to cut the Glue Chip pieces much quicker and more precisely than he did his first 8 pieces.
With the center portion of his window all cut there was only the two colored border left to go. To ensure a perfect fit we always cut the border after the center of the window is tacked together. With the center of this octogon all cut we moved Jack to the grinder and had him grind all his pieces so they would fit together perfectly. As each piece is ground we hold it in place with pins to make sure that nothing slides out of place. Below you can see that Jack has half of his window ground and fitted perfectly.
With everything ground and fitting together we moved jack onto the final step of the day—wrapping all the pieces of glass with copper foil. Here’s a picture of Jack’s window all pinned into place with 2 pieces of glass foiled.
Every piece (including the bevels) must be wrapped with a copper foil that runs along the edge of the glass and is then folded over onto the front and back sides. The trick is to align the foil on the pieces evenly so that the amount of foil that folds onto the top of the glass is the same as the amount of foil folding over the bottom of the glass. The lead that we will use to hold this window together will adhere to the copper foil and NOT the glass itself. If the foil is uneven your lead lines will be uneven as well. If your foil is thick on one side and thin on the other you will see thru the glass and see a large lead line on the other side of the window with a very thin line on the front. Anyone looking at it can tell that something is not right with it if this happens. The rule of thumb is to take your time when you foil your pieces. Lead lines are one of the first things that people notice when looking at a stained glass window. Here the center portion of Jacks window all wrapped and ready to be tacked.
Once Jack had all his pieces wrapped and put into place he proceeded to apply flux onto all the visible copper foil and then go over it with solder to secure it. When tacking a window together we don’t care about how the solder on it looks– at least not just yet. The object is to hold everything together so we can move it around while cutting the border pieces.
Jack cut 8 strips of glass on the strip cutter—4 purple and 4 blue. He cut the proper angles on each end, making sure to alternate the colors, and everything lined up perfectly. He wrapped his pieces and we called it a day at about 6:00. Jack got a bit further along than we anticipated and it made for a quick easy day on Sunday when we resumed this project.
Jack got started on Sunday morning at about 9:00. All we had to do before soldering was to cut 8 pieces of brass channel and attach them to each edge of the window. It was a simple case of laying the channel next to and edge, marking it at the opposite end and then cutting it with a pair of wire cutters. We did that 8 times and then tacked each corner of the brass channel to the window. Once that was secured Jack began soldering. Here’s a picture of the back side of the window all ready to be soldered.
Both sides of the window now need to be soldered. Soldering is a tricky process that is somewhat like riding a bike. It’s easy to explain how to do, but there’s a feel to it that you must master to get a good solder line on your window. The solder comes on a 1 pound spool like a large spool of thread. You must apply the solder to the tip of the soldering iron which in turn is resting on the glass. You slide the tip of the iron along the window using the foil as a path. As the iron travels across the foil the solder melts and leaves a bead behind the iron as it moves along. The trick is managing all this at once. You must pay attention to how much solder you are melting onto the window. Too much and you end up with clumps all along the lines, too little and you end up with flat lines that may even have sharp ends. I’ve found that the first side of a students window is quite rough looking and that by the time the student finishes their second side they pretty much have it under control. The good part about soldering is that you can go over the lead lines as many times as you want until they look good to you. Jack had the soldering almost completely mastered before the front of his window was finished. The second side looked great and after that was complete we touched up the first side so the quality of work matched the second side and we got ready to wash and color the window.
When you are finished soldering a stained glass window the lead is silver. We have 3 options in the final color of the lead—silver, copper, or black. Most stained glass windows are finished with a copper finish with turns dull over a period of time and gives the window an old-style look. I’ve noticed that a lot of windows and lamps you see in stores today are colored with black patina. (Largely because these pieces are mass produced and the black hides imperfections in the soldering job.) The choice is a purely a personal one—there’s no right or wrong in choosing one over the other but as a general rule of thumb I like to finish windows that contain a lot of clear, colorless glass in black. It adds a sharp contrast against the clear glass and makes the lead lines pop out. Jack agreed that black would look good on this window and in about 15 minutes we had his window washed and colored. We were finished before 12:30.
Jack’s window came out perfectly. All his hard work and attention to detail really paid off when you look at his finished work. You can see what a difference the black lead lines make on this window when you compare the picture below to the picture above where the lead lines are still silver.
We had a good time with this class. In the span of a day and a half Jack started and finished a beautiful stained glass window that he can say he made himself. And there was no mistaking that Jack had a good time doing it. It fact, he’s already talking about coming back to do another window in the future!
Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks