Here It Is, Lane!!!
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