Bayou Salé GlassWorks

The strip cutter got a good work out this week when everyone but Lane cut and tacked borders onto their windows. And just for good measure, Cheryl put 2 and a half borders on her window!

Cheryl left last week with a patteren in hand and a stack of glass. When she came in this week she had the LSU, the shadow and the background of her window all cut and ground. I’m not sure how she’s finding the time, but she’s certainly keeping busy at home. The work was so perfect that we only had to adjust 2 pieces after she wrapped them all (which always makes a window grow unevenly). After tacking the window all together she cut the top and bottom strips of the background and attached them. Then she cut a thin yellow border followed by a thicker purple border. When she left for the night it was ready to be soldered and I know it will come back next week ready to be hung.

Joey got to use the strip cutter for the first time (this is only his second window and his first one was round) and mastered it within 2 strips. He cut 5 strips, cut them to size and attached them to his window. When he left the front was completely soldered and he had begun working on the back side. I suspect there will be a battle for the soldering iron between Joey and Cheryl at their house this week. Look for this window to be finished next week.

Lane sat down and began the long task of soldering his window. I gave him a refresher course on soldering and then went about helping everyone else. I asked Lane how he was doing throughout the night and he’d reply with a “Fine” or “Fabulous” so I left him do his thing. By the end of the night I was shocked to discover that he had almost all of the front finished. And what a ‘fabulous’ job he did! Although you can’t see much of a change from last week you’ll just have to take my word when I say that he’s done wonderfully and his window is really starting to shape up. I’m expecting to see the back of this almost completely soldered next week. Washing it is going to have to be a day job since it’s so large, but Lane can see the finish line now!

Gerald also cut and ground a border. Like Joey, he ground, wrapped it all and then attached it to his window. After adding some brass channel around the edges he soldered most of the front side. There’s not much left to do on this window and Gerald already has his next 2 projects lined up. Look for more pictures next week to see what Gerald is up to next.

Not to be outdone by Lane who was pictured here last week in the blog, Gerald is pictured here next to his window so you can get an idea of its size. I’m expecting Gerald to get as many emails as Lane did last week asking if he’s single.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It was busy but I think everyone in class managed to have a fun time.  Gerald got things rolling right away with his monkey joke (don’t ask) and it was Laissez les bons temps rouler from there (hard to believe I’m a Yankee, huh?).

First and foremost, I was very impressed with Cheryls work at home.  I knew that she was going to be coming in with a Sun that she had made, but I didn’t know that it was going to be completely finished and done to almost complete perfection!  A few of her lead joints needed touching up but this is me nitpicking so she doesn’t get a swollen head about how wonderfully she did.  And to think that she just recovered from surgery on her hand!  She cut all the glass, ground it, and then soldered everything to come up with the finished piece you see here.  An excellant job, Cheryl!  Then we looked through different LSU logos and settled on one that we drew up into a pattern that measures about 26 inches wide by 13 inches high.  You’ll see the LSU window next week.

When we last left Joey he had to wrap just over 100 small pieces of glass.  When he came in tonight he had it all wrapped!  We put him back to work on a table with a soldering iron and some solder and he tacked it all together.  Things were a little hectic through the night but it didn’t slow Joey down– with a little help from Cheryl (who’s a pro at this now) he soldered the front of his window.  Next week he will add the border, solder the back and hopefully take it home.

Lane wrapped most of his final border at home and finished the few remaining pieces in class.  Then we squared the window up, added some more re-striping between the 2 borders and tacked it all together.  The window was almost perfectly square even before we added the zinc channel which sqaured it off perfectly.  With everything tacked together and surrounded by zinc channel Lane was able to actually lift his window off the table and get a real good look at it.  Rather than crop him out of the picture I’m leaving him in it so you get see just how large a project this window was.  It’s hard to believe this was his first window!

Last, but not least we have Gerald’s Fleur de Lis window.  All his diamonds were wrapped and then he filled in the sections that had to be cut to for the oval that the Fleur de Lis rests in.  He’ll add a black border to this next week and more than likely finished it then.  There are almost 50 pieces in his background alone but the extra work makes this window stand out nicely.

And that was our night.  There will be more to follow next week when everyone returns.  We also have a weekend workshop that’s filling up so look for a lot of windows to be finished in the next 3 weeks.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

Ellen and Jane were both in for our morning class today.  Ellen had purchased a fireplace screen and knew what design she wanted to make for it–  the bayou scene from the main page of our homepage (www.bsgw.biz).

The original window was roughly 3 foot by 3 foot wide and the fireplace screen is almost twice as long as it is high, so the pattern had to be adjusted to fit in the new demensions while maintaining it’s correct aspect.  All in all I think the pattern came out nicely.  During the week between classes Ellen managed to put together another beveled star while she was at home.  Good job, Ellen!   Ellen can do about anything on her own now.  She’s comfortable and extremely capable with cutting and soldering and she’s ready to tackle her latest (large) window.  Here’s a look at the full 3 panel fireplace screen pattern and then a closeup of the center section that Ellen traced out today and will begin working on first.

     

Jane had finished her octagon window while she was home last week and brought it back so I could go over her soldering.  She had only a few problem areas and that was only along the borders on long straight runs.  I touched them up and then while she worked on a beveled star of her own I washed it, colored it and then waxed it for her.  Jane was going to do it herself at home, but I wanted to be sure we had some finished pictures!  So while she was wrapping and putting a soldered edge on her triangle bevels I did the mundane cleanup on her Octagon Window.  I then hung it in the sun and took this picture.  It’s another example of the wonderful work Jane does.

And let’s not forget the star that she made during class today.  Here’s 2 views of  that.

During classes we heard from Gerald who called to said he wouldn’t be able to make it in so both he and Lane will be arriving tomorrow (Wednesday) for our night class.   Look for their progress to be posted sometime Thursday morning along with Cheryl and Joey’s work.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

I put the 2 pictures for this posting on a USB drive and then forgot about them until last night when I found them again. Sorry Joey!

The night was a quick one. Joey spent his time picking up where he had left off from two weeks earlier.  As you can see from the picture below he had a few pieces left to grind before he could start wrapping this window.

He diligently worked on grinding each remaining piece, hoping to finish them before the end of the night. It was close, but at around 8:45 I told him he’d surely make it and he did with 1 or two minutes to spare!

I gave Joey a quick refresher course in wrapping the glass (remember that although this window looks like it was done by a seasoned professional, it’s only Joey’s second project) and then he took it all home with him to see what he might be able to finish during the week.

It’s going to be good to see this window finished as this same pattern was started by another student who dropped out of classes due to her job. Notice that the background of this window all flows together as if it were cut from one piece of glass. The glass only fit half the window, but good placement and a few tricks make all the pieces fit together as if it were unbroken.

We’ll see more of this Mallard tomorrow night when Joey returns.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We’ve been running back and forth to town watching a friend’s store this week and then rushing back to have our night classes so this posting is a bit late. Once again, I’ll just lump the 2 classes from Tuesday into one Blog entry to help speed things up so these pictures can get out on the web as soon as possible.

Ellen was waiting on a fireplace screen she had ordered from Delphi Glass to arrive for her next project and we couldn’t draw the pattern for it until we knew what the exact size was so she was in a bit of an interim. Rather than  waste a day she decided to learn how to make a 3D beveled star this week. Stars are easy when you know the secret of how to put them together. And the best part about using bevels to make them is that you don’t even have to cut any glass! Ellen wrapped twelve 3 x 3 x 3 triangle bevels and a 2 x 2 square in silver backed foil. It’s far easier to leave the finished star silver and that’s why she used silver backed foil. Since the bevels are clear we can see the adhesive side of the foil thru the bevel. If we used regular foil we would see a copper line tracing out each bevels and the silver backed foil avoids that problem altogether. Now when the star is finished the silver adhesive side blends right in with the silver lead lines.

After everything was wrapped she went over all her edges with solder and placed a bead on all three sides of the bevles. She assembled the star from the inside out (that’s the secret) and then readjusted her joints so each point lined up perfectly.  A small dot of solder was placed on each joint and then on the under sides of the joints to insure that her star will stay together over the years.

After all that came the really hard part– cleaning the clear bevels and then waxing it all. She finished this project in about 2 hours and decided to make a second one to match. What’s really about these stars is that they make great Christmas presents and can actually hang in a window all year long.

Jane surprised me yet again this week. When she left last week she had a lot of square background pieces to cut. We more or less said that we would do this work when she arrived this week but when she came in she had all but 3 pieces cut, ground and wrapped! And it was flawless. One piece threw her off a bit because I forgot to put a lead line on the pattern. The other two were tricky cuts that required a lot of grinding to accomplish. We could have made them easier with lead lines but that would have taken away the flow of the top of the window. This is what Jane walked in the door with.

After the final pieces were dropped into place we cut her border on the strip cutter and then cut the angles on each end so they wrapped around the window. A piece of channel was added around the border and then we added to hooks so we could hang it and see what it woul look like in the sunlight. Although it’s not soldered you can see exactly what this window will look like when it’s finished next week from this picture.

Gerald came in and continued working on his Fleur de Les window. He could have gone the easy route and made a simple 7 piece Fleur de Les, but instead he cut bevel lines into it giving it more depth and 14 more small, intricate pieces.

Not stopping there with the added complexity he decided that  instead of making a simple 4 piece background he would use an alternating diamond pattern which took 50 pieces of glass! Luckily the strip cutter came through and made things pretty easy in terms of cutting it all. Still, there’s a lot of grinding and wrapping to do. Here’s what it looks like so far. I’d expect to see the border added next week and the soldering well on it’s way since he has most of this ground and will be wrapping them at home.  Oh, and he cut the reeded glass oval sections of the Fluer de Les also!!

Next we have Lane’s Iris Window. As you know he got almost all of his background cut in one night last week. This week he finished the background and also cut and ground the inner white border. Before tacking it onto the window we added some re-stripping into it to help make the window a bit sturdier. Re-stripping hides in between the cut glass so you don’t see bars in front or behind the window bracing it.

After the white border was tacked onto the window with the re-stripping in place Lane cut the larger, final border and got all the piecs of it ground. He’s numbered them and taken them home with him to wrap during the week before he comes back next Tuesday. This means that all of Lane’s glass cutting is finished! Next week he’ll tack the final border that he wrapped onto the window (while applying 4 more pieces of re-stripping), add a zinc channel to it and start soldering. Here’s his window with the last border laying in place. It gives you a good ides of what it will look like. The glass behind the Irises is clear– it looks white because the window is sitting atop a white piece of paper.  Also, don’t let the picture fool you.  This window is about 3 foot by 3 foot in size.

Craig was in again during a night class this time to make a 3D star like Ellen made earlier today. Craig will be making a total of 9 stars (that’s 117 bevels total) and most of these will be done or mostly completed at his home. He spent the majority of the night wrapping all his bevels and before he started on his last box of bevels we decided to actually complete a star so he could see and experience the process first hand. Like Ellen he coated his bevels with solder and applied a bead to twelve 3 x 3 x 3 bevels and a single 2 x 2 square. He learned how to tack it together from the inside out and then add the hook that it hangs from. In the end his star was identical to Ellen’s. The picture of his star doesn’t look as nice as Ellen’s picture only because it was dark outside when he finished it and we ended up taking a picture of it sitting on the work table. I tried hanging it from the ceiling but the clear bevels just got lost against the busy walls of the shop (there’s a lot of things hanging off the walls in there!).

We had a great day in classes- There was a lot of laughing which makes the class all the more fun and everyone got a lot accomplished. That’s it for today!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Russ has been busy during the weekend workshops himself. He decided to make one of the most complex patterns to see just what we should expect to get accomplished during the first class if someone chooses this pattern.

He picked the bear pattern for his first trial project. He started it along with Jack who was taking the class at the time (see the Sept 14th blog listing) and began tracing out his pattern onto paper to cut up into the individual pieces. He decided to use pattern shears to see wha kind of a difference they would make on the amount of grinding that needed to be done. Pattern shears differ from regular scissors because they trim a small amount of the paper off of each piece you cut. This means that when you actually cut the glass you aren’t forced to strickly follow the rule of cutting off the line that you trace onto the glass.

Once the pattern was cut up he began tracing it onto his glass one color at a time. He started with the clouds, then the sky and moved to the green trees and the tree trunks.

A green grass bottom was added after the rest of the brown was cut. As you can see, the pieces are fitting together almost perfectly before they are even ground.

With the water and ground complete he moved on to the last part– the actual bear. You can see in the picture that there are only 11 pieces left to go.

With everything cut Russ beganto grinding everything to fit. The pattern shears made the window fit almost perfectly so a quick skim was all most of the pieces needed. In the future, if someone uses pattern shears to cut their pattern out we won’t be so picky about cutting the line off while cutting the glass. The reasoning here is the fact that these pieces were almost small compared to what was drawn on the actual pattern– But it did make grinding quick and easy.

Once all the grinding was complete he wrapped his glass. Before the end of the first day he was ready to tack it all together. Here’s his window all ground and wrapped.

The next morning had Russ with a soldering iron in his hand and after it was tacked together he used the strip cutter. He cut tan strips into 21 inch lengths and then cut them into equally sized pieces to surround his window (4 on the sides, 3 on the top and bottom and then 4 corners).

Russ took his time and soldered his window slowly but surely. You can’t rush soldering as the solder will only melt at a certain speed. Somecan can solder a window quickly only because they get the bead correct on the first pass and don’t have to go over it a second time.  You can’t move faster than the lead melts, if you do you end up with a clumpy mess rather than a smooth bead. It sounds easy enough but there’s a trick to it. Once you get the feel for it you’ll be set, much like riding a bike. Here’s the window almost completely soldered.

Now for the dramatic final picture. It’s amazing how simply cleaning the window and coloring the lead will make it look so finished. It’s very much like night and day!

With this window under his belt Russ decided to do another one about 2 weeks later. I regret that I was unable to take pictures of its progress as he made it, but that’s only because he knocked it out so quickly! This one will be a new student pattern that Russ drew from scratch and finished within about 8 hours (split over two days only because he started late on the first day). The window is a geometric design and is quite colorful, don’t you agree??

These windows are great examples of what you can make during our Weekend Workshop or our standard 5 week classes.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

I’m sorry this is a little late but the Weekend Workshop post took longer than I’d anticipated.
We’ll start with Jane who left us last week with a pattern in her hand and some glass picked out. When she arrived this week she was carrying a project board that had her flowers cut, ground, and pinned to it. And the work was flawless!

She finished cutting the rest of her leaves, making sure everything was ground well and then wrapped what she had cut before she left. The picture below looks like there’s less finished than in the first one, but most of the pieces are now wrapped and the others are being taken home for foiling in a small container. This window is moving quickly!

Meanwhile Ellen came in and finished up the wedding box that she started last week. We had a bit of a problem when we couldn’t find a piece of clear glass that we thought we had to enclose the wedding invitation, but we eventually turned up enough in scraps. Clear window glass is now on our ‘must order’ list!

Ellen decided to use the same glass that she used in the small flowers for her border. The design allowed us to do this because the flowers dont rest against the border. If one (or more) of the flowers were cut off by the border we would have to go with a different glass. Luckily we only have one complete flower resting against the edge of the border so we were fine. The colors worked wonderfully and the box went together faster than you could imagine. Again, Ellen has done a wonderful job and is ready to make a 3D star next week before she starts her Fireplace Screen.

Lane came in at night and worked on the background to his Iris window. He brought back the rest of the Iris petals that he had taken home to wrap and we tacked it all together. The plan was to then slide the clear background glass under the irises and then trace each piece out, but instead it was easier to just lie the glass on top of what was cut and trace it out from above. It must have worked out well because all but 8 pieces were cut, ground and wrapped before Lane left for home. We tacked the pieces into place and were actually able to lift the window up on its end to take the picture this week. I predict that Lane will finish all his glass cutting next week and that we will have a picture of the window with 1 of the borders already tacked on. The other border will most likely go home with him to be wrapped and then he’ll solder this HUGE window! It was a big undertaking for a first project, but Lane stuck with it and is now starting to see just what he’s accomplished.

Normally this would end the Blog, but since I’m a day late and I have a picture of what Gerald did the following night I’ll just add it to this posting.

Gerald knew he wanted a Fleur de Les window and came in with a sketch of what he anticipated building. We traced out a square that measured 16 x 16 and then set a Fleur de Les into an oval that we then placed in the center of the square. Gerald added a repeating diamond background and some extra detail to the Fleur de Les by adding more cuts to it. He grabbed a piece of glass, traced out the ‘FdL’ and proceeded to cut his glass. By the end of the night he had the FdL cut, ground and in a bag to take home to wrap. It’s going to be a beautiful window and here’s what he got accomplished. Make sure to click on this so you can see all the detail Gerald added to it.

And that was it for this week. Look for our next post in the next day or so which will feature 2 windows that Russ has made over the past few weeks.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

After a few test runs to make sure that the projects we had picked out could be completed in 2 days we decided it was time for the real deal. We had our first REAL class with 3 students make 3 windows over the span of 2 days. How did it go? I’m relieved to say, “Wonderfully”!

We had JoAnn, Ric and Jack all arrive here at the house/shop shortly before 11am on Saturday morning. We all talked a bit getting to know each other and then headed out to the shop to get some work done.

JoAnn had decided to do Geometric Pattern #2 but with an alternate set of colors. Ric picked Geometric Pattern #3 and Jack had picked out a custom pattern (since this was his second time through the class). Here are the Photoshopped patterns to give you an idea of what we want these to resemble.

We started with a half hour long lesson involving how to use a glass cutter and then revisited our youths by tracing out a second copy of our patterns with poster board and carbon paper. They all got a pair of scissors, cut up all their pieces and laid them out on the patterns used to re-assemble all the glass that will be cut throughout this two day process. And then the fun began as the glass cutters came out and they all started cutting glass.

We decided that the best place for JoAnn to begin would be in the center of her pattern. I like working from the inside out because you can really see how things are looking right away. It also helps to show that you’re accomplishing something when you see the center of the window cut out rather than the boring outside edges. JoAnn decided to alter the color combination a bit by substituting different shades of blue in the pattern. Here you can see all of her center is cut out with only the background and borders left to complete.

After the background was cut in clear Gluechip we had Joann grind everything to ensure a perfect fit before she foiled the pieces. As with the cutting, JoAnn took right to the grinder and was able to get everything to fit together perfectly with little effort.

Even after cutting and grinding for most of the afternoon JoAnn managed to get most of her window wrapped before calling it a day. Here you can see the window is all ground and mostly wrapped. (The wrapped pieces have a gold/copper edge around them.)

Ric was the second of 3 people who worked from the inside out. (I must confess that I always work in that direction when cutting out a window.) Working one color at a time he cut out all his pattern pieces until there was nothing left but the clear Gluechip background. I think Ric may have been a little unsure of his glass cutting skills at first, but by the time he got this far he was more than confident! Confidence is always an issue when someone is undertaking a full sized window and they’ve never cut glass before. Once Ric had a few pieces cut successfully he was just fine. Here you can see Ric’s window with only 4 pieces left to cut before he started grinding it all.

Ric got in front of a grinder and proceeded to smooth all the rough edges of his glass and shape any sections that didn’t match the pattern perfectly. We all used a method of grinding where you make adjustments after you have ground the piece that rests next to it. It’s almost like taking a step backwards after every 2 steps forward, but it ensures that everything will fit together the best possible way and takes into account any cutting errors. Here’s Ric’s window all cut, ground, and mostly wrapped. After he had finished wrapping all his pieces he, like JoAnn, called it a day.

Meanwhile, Jack was working up a storm on another table. Since he had gone through this class just 2 weeks earlier he was practically an pro at this. He decided to alternate the colors in his lettering rather than using just one color. He liked the way it looked in the colored in pattern I’d emailed him and decided to use the same color scheme. Like everyone else he was working inside out by cutting all his letters out and then grinding them to fit the pattern.

Once all the letters were ground Jack wrapped them and tacked them together. He then cut a piece of clear rough rolled glass the size of the bacground and traced the glass letters he had cut on top of the background glass. It was then a simple matter of cutting out the sections of clear that would rest between the colored letters. Since they were traced onto the glass from the glass letters themselves rather than a paper pattern, they would all fit together with a minimal amount of grinding. Still, the pieces were narrow and the cuts made to form the letters were small and curvy so it wasn’t exactly as easy as it might sound . He wrapped each piece as it came off of the grinder and when his background was finished he tacked it all together. In the end, it still took a good deal of time (cutting is the longest past of the process) but Jack managed a great fit with his pieces and all his letters are completely legible. Here’s what he ended up with at the end of the day.

At this point we ate, watched some TV, talked about how the projects were going and how the day matched or didn’t match the idea that were in everyone’s head about what it took to make a stained glass window. We all hit the sack and woke up Sunday morning which brings us to our final day of the Workshop– Day 2. They all got in the shop a little past 10 am and resumed working on their windows.
When Jack went to cut the clear rough rolled strips for the top and bottom of the letters we realized that we didn’t have a single piece left that was long enough to span the length of the window. Not a problem though– we just split the glass into 4 pieces and then tacked them on. We could have split it once in the center but it wouldn’t have looked as aesthetically pleasing that way.

All that was left at this point was to attach a blue border and channel. That would be the easy part — Soldering it would take longer. By noon time Jack had the rest of the border cut, tacked and ground. The brass channel was put on and Jack set about soldered the front. Here’s a picture of the back side before it gets soldered.

At around 3 o’clock the window was finished and we hung it outside to take some pictures. All in all, Jack made great time in getting this finished and he also did a great job getting it all together. Here is his finished work and the colored pattern to the right of it. Not bad at all!

While all that was going on Ric was working on his window as well. We realized right away that one of the corner pieces would have to be recut because it didn’t fit well. To insure a perfect fit he tacked together what he had wrapped and the re-cut the corner piece using the actual window as a pattern by laying it on top of the glue chip and tracing it out.

When it was re-cut and ground it was perfect. Having to re-cut a piece is nothing out of the ordinary in the stained glass world. We could have easily used the piece that Ric had originally cut for the last corner but I would have known it could have been a better fit and Ric would have known it also. Sure, it took an extra 15 or 20 minutes to replace it but in the end it was very much worth the extra time.

Ric got his borders cut, attached them and then soldered his window. By the time he was finished washing everything the sun was low in the sky but we still managed two shots of the window with the sun on it in varying degrees. Here are 2 shots of Ric’s finished window along with the original pattern to the far right. Great job, Ric!!

And don’t think that JoAnn was just lounging around all day while everyone else worked. She was as busy as could be. When we last saw her window she had begun wrapping all the glass but still had a way to go before it was finished. The first thing she did on Sunday was to finish all her wrapping. Once that was complete she tacked it together and then cut her border pieces.

She decided on a dark blue border with the lighter blue that she used in the center part of the window as accent pieces in the corners. She got it all cut, wrapped and tacked and then added the final brass channel to it. This is what she had just before she started to apply the finishing solder to it.

After soldering her window we were losing sunlight fast. It was clearly daylight outside but by the time JoAnn had washed, patina’ed, re-washed and then waxed her window the sun was low in the sky making it difficult to take a nice clear picture outside. But that’s not to say that the window doesn’t look great in this picture (which was taken inside the shop). JoAnn, like Ric and Jack, did a great job making this window. I hope she’s proud because she should be! Here’s the finished window on the left and the pattern on the right.

All in all I think everyone had a good time. Thanks to JoAnn we had a table of food that resembled the desert table at a buffet! Everyone walked away with a great stained glass window along with the knowledge and skill to do it again if they chose to. And I have to say that I couldn’t have spent two days with a better group of people if I’d tried!

So here are all the finished windows all in a row: JoAnn’s on the left, Ric’s in the center, and Jack’s on the right.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

PS– For those of you who are still wondering what the letters in Jacks window stand for, well, let’s just say it stands for “I Love You So Freaking Much I Could Just Scream!”

It has recently come to my attention that our second test run of our Weekend Workshop never made it to the Blog. All the pictures were taken, stored in a folder and then unceremoniously (and accidentally) moved to the CLASSES folder before I posted them here and wrote it all up. So without further ado we bring to you, Craig’s Window.

On Saturday, September 23rd Craig walked into class and began working on the Geometric #3 design. Like most of our students, Craig had no prior glass cutting experience so we started with a quick lesson on how to cut glass. About a half hour later we were confident that he’d be able to cut out all the glass that makes his window and we put him to work.

After tracing out a second copy of his pattern he cut it all up and then traced them onto the glass. He had deviated from the picture he’d seen of the window by picking various shades of blue. After he had everything cut he went on to grind everything so it would all fit together perfectly. You can see the pieces that are ground are held in place with pins to make sure that everything doesn’t shift while trying to grind the other pieces.

Once everything was ground we made sure the window was ’square’ which means that each corner is a perfect right angle. With everything lining up perfectly Craig began foiling his glass. Every piece needs to be wrapped with a copper foil which gives the lead something to adhere to when we melt it. Each piece must be wrapped evenly or our lead lines will run thick and thin troughout the window. The pieces outlined in copper are the ones he has wrapped so far.

With everything wrapped we just need to tack it together and then cut the strips for the borders. Craig picked a clear bevel for the center of his window. You can see thru it and see the lines for a center option if a bevel was not picked. We called it a day at this point knowing that the only thing left to do was cut the borders (a half hour task at best) and solder the window.

On Sunday Craig cut his border pieces on the strip cutter, tacked them into place and then added a brass channel around the edges which he then covered with lead so it would all color evenly. Here it is all soldered and ready for a dip in the sink to clean it up before applying the copper patina. He started at around 10:00 Sunday morning and finished soldering at about 2:00.

After all the flux was washed off Craig applied the copper patina to the window and then washed it a final time before waxing it and hanging it up to enjoy. It was 2 days of work but had a good time making this window. And just look at it!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks