Have You Seen Mike Hutter?
Who is Mike Hutter and why am I always asking if anyone has seen him?
This week brings us an extended weekend workshop session with returning student Craig who managed to finish 2 windows in his 3 days of work. He got in on Wednesday night and managed to get all but the background of his geometric window all cut, ground and wrapped. The next day he was back in the shop at 7am where he finished cutting the background and taked it all together. He decided to go with a zinc channel because the window has no border and the zinc makes it much more sturdier. By 2:00 he had it finished and moved on to a project that he didn’t think he’d manage to finish in his remaining time. But by midnight (talk about a LONG day!) he’d gotten the window all finished except for the soldering. The next morning was another early one for him and by noon he had his second window soldered and ready for hanging. Here are the two windows he made in about 25 hours.
 
Fran managed to get almost all of her rooster cut out and will be ready to grind next week for sure. It looks like she’s only got about 4 pieces left to cut. You can compare this to the Rooster that Joey did last week to see what a difference colors can have on a pattern. There’s no right or wrong in choosing the colors, but they do make you see the piece in a different light (no pun intended).
Gerald has almost all of his Rooster cut out and it’s already ground. The only thing he had left to do was to cut out the eye sections and then a few pieces for the background. But in typical Gerald fashion he’s decided to add a bit more work to this by cutting the background glass into a chicken wire pattern. It will be a lot of small pieces but the effect will add a lot to the finished design. I can’t wait to see how it looks.
Jane came in with her deer window just about finished. She picked a deep brown for the final border and she finished it in class just in time for us to hang it up and snap a few pictures of it. She’ll be making a moose window to match this one next. Great job!
Ellen’s lamp is completely tacked together and the flower centers are all in place. She also has the cap of the lamp soldered on which means that she’s set to solder it! I don’t think it’s going to take her long to solder it at all. We help it up to the light and everyone agrees that the colors are fantastic. Alas, you will have to wait a bit longer to see it finished and lit up. Meanwhile take a look at a small section of the lamp tacked together and off of it’s mold.
Mark came in and picked out colors for his latest window which was taken from another painting that he found online. After he picked out the glass for this project he traced out his pattern and then cut it all apart. He decided to cut his green leaves first and traced everything onto one large sheet of glass. By the end of the class he had all his green cut already! Mark works very quickly and his cutting is perfect. He understands the importance of cutting on the inside of the line and because of this he won’t be spending much time at the grinder trying to get pieces to fit together. Here’s where his window stands this week.
Tommy returned this week and decided to remake the same window he made last time around. Since his pattern was already cut out he saved a little time this week (even though it took us 10 minutes or longer to find where I hid it) and was able to immediately begin tracing out his pattern pieces and cutting his glass. By 7:30 he had most of the window cut and then by 8:30 it was all ground. We expected him to take his pieces home to wrap them during the week but he managed to wrap it all before 9:15 and will only have to cut, grind and wrap the borders for this piece next week!
We got a lot accomplished this week and we’ll see a lot more next week. See you all then!
Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks