2 Days of Classes
It’s been quite a productive week with a lot of work getting completed all around. Let’s get started with out latest student, Tommy.
Tommy decided that for his first project he would make an LSU window for himself. He settled on a blocked letter design with some shadowing to give it a 3D effect. He’s using a clear textured glass for the background, purple for his shadows, and yellow for the actual letters. He traced out his pattern, cut it all out with a pair of scissors and then proceeded to cut all of his glass. Within an hour or so he was finished with everything save for his borders (which we always add on after the window is tacked together). Moving to the grinder he ground all his pieces so they fit perfectly. By 9:00 he was finished and we gave him a quick refresher course in how to wrap all his glass pieces in copper foil so he could do that while he’s at home between classes. Tommy’s work is incredibly meticulous and he’s moving along very quickly. He does a lot of wood work at home and maybe that’s why he’s taken so quickly to working with patterns and getting everything to fit together. Next week he will tack this together and get the borders attached. The picture below is framed out between two squares which is keeping all his edges even. The finished window will have two borders.
Gerald got the sky and the water cut and ground for his Pelican window this week. Rather than using 1 piece of glass for the water he cut it up into rolling waves which took a lot of time, but added more depth to his window. For the sky he choose a simple light blue with a lot of white swirled throughout. The simple sky ensures that his birds don’t get lost in the background. He cut and ground it all and will be doing some wrapping at home this week. Next week he’ll add his border and start soldering. This window is just about finished at this point in time. Make sure to pay attention to the intricate design in the water when you click on this picture to see the enlarged version.
Cheryl, who has many projects in the works, worked some more on her address window. Since it’s so big we had to worry about making it transportable so that she can work on it both at home and here at the shop. To do this we haven’t tacked the outer border to the center number section of her window. This means the window can be disassembled and reassembled for easy transportation. With the center portion of her window all tacked together she proceeded to cut and grind the blue pieces that interlock between the corners and the central border. She got a good three quarters of the window finished during class and she plans on having the other 1/4 ready next week. Cheryl’s biggest problem at this point in time is that the white glass we ordered to fill in the sections between the two blue borders came in wrong. Replacement glass is being shipped as we speak so hopefully we’ll have it next week when she’ll probably need it. And don’t even ask poor Cheryl about the delay in her glass rods arriving. Let’s just say that when you look for a specialty item online you should check to make sure you are ordering from within the United States. (This one is clearly MY fault!) After I showed Cheryl how to disassemble her window to transport it I realized that I hadn’t taken a picture of it so I quickly colored her pattern in Photoshop to show you how far along she’s progressed. Next weeks picture will be the real deal…
Fran finished all the cutting on her Camaro Window and was wrapping it at home when she was here last. When she came in this week she had it ready to go. She put it all together and then pondered the color choice for the 3 remaining pieces and the border itself. We had to re-grind a piece or two to get it to fit together which is normal for a project with this many pieces. Each piece of glass is wrapped with 1 mil foil and all those 1 mil’s add up when you count the number of pieces there are in a window of this complexity. It only took a few minutes and then the grill and headlights took over as Fran’s priority. After contemplating numerous colors and textures we all decided that using a heavily textured clear glass gave us a suitable look for the reflective chrome of the car. The headlights were done in a similar textured glass, but not identical. Once that was done the hunt for a border color was on. We tried many colors and eventually settled on a pice of royal blue glass. Fran learned how the strip cutter is used and then after she ground all the strips she packed them up and took them home to wrap. She’ll be soldering this window next week for sure.
Jessie, who finished her Horse Window last week, came in and found her owl pattern all drawn up to size. There are about a hundred pieces in this window so it’s not going to be a quick and easy project, but she’s made great progress on just her first night working on it. She traced it all out, numbered it and then colored it so we know what color glass each of the pieces should be cut from. She’s close to having a good one third of this window cut already. I’ll bet the owl itself will be all cut next week and then she’ll be ready to start grinding it.
Joey worked on wrapping all the pieces in his Cocky-Rooster window and got pretty far into it before the night ended. His window is ground perfectly and his wrapping on even the tiniest pieces is precise and even. He gets a big thumbs up from me because unbeknownst to him I watched as he would trim his overlapping foil ends with a razor knife rather than leaving uneven overlaps. This makes for perfect solder lines when he solders this window next week. When Joey is wrapping glass he gets so wrapped up in his work (no pun intended) we can pretty much forget he’s there in the class! His Rooster is looking great and Joey will be finishing this one up shortly.
Mark was another student who came in with all of the glass he took home with him wrapped and ready to assemble. He still had pieces left to grind so that was what he concentrated on doing. By the end of the class the window was not only ground, but it was wrapped and tacked together! We still have a few minor pieces to fill in but we left them for last to ensure that everything would line up perfectly. The only thing left to do are 3 beaks and 6 leg pieces. Then Mark will add a border (forty-five minute’s work at best) and then start soldering his window. I already said that I loved this window last week so I’ll just imply it here again this week. :-) BTW, I colored the missing areas orange/yellow where the beaks will go because it just looked strange when I looked at the picture without them in place. 
It looks like we may have another new student next week so be prepared for a new butterfly!
