Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Fran finished her rooster this week and it looks great all lit up. She’s purchased a grinder now so she’ll be able to get some work done at home as well as here in class. She’s got two more projects lined up so we know she’ll be keeping busy. Look here next week week to see her beveled 3D star.

Christine finished her first hand mirror and began working on a second one. It looks like she’ll be making 1 a week for a while now that she has a system hammered out. While she’s waiting to the mirror edge sealant to dry on mirror that she worked on the week before she cuts and grinds another. By the time that’s finished the first one is ready to be finished. Look for a similar mirror next week with a different color scheme.

Gerald came in a bit late and surprised us all when he walked in the door. He finished wrapping his Irises and then cut and ground the trunk to the tree in the extreme left corner of his window. When he was finished with that he laid out all his glass (14 sheets) and figured out where he’d be using each color. Next week he’ll be cutting out his Iris leaves.

Ellen is working on 2 windows with humming birds in them. The windows are the same design but they are mirror images of each other. She’s got the center ovals cut for for each one and, as always, is moving along very quickly. I wish you could see how precise her cutting is– she’s really got this down now!

Grace started cutting the top eye section of her LSU window after she tacked the bottom letters together. I figured that it would take her longer to cut this section out but I can tell she’s getting more comfortable in her cutting because of how quickly she’s moving alone. She’ll be grinding away at her pieces next week for sure!

Mary Lynn came in with all her pieces wrapped and then tacked them together so she could cut some corner pieces and then square off her window. She picked colors that match what she’s already using and got it almost all together. She’s got 10 border pieces to wrap and then she’ll be soldering this window.

Janice squared off her window just like Mary Lynn did but she doubled the width that Mary Lynn went with. She has some wrapping to do at home this week before she starts soldering this window next week. I don’t think it will be finished next week but it will certainly be finished the following week.

Jimmie and Tiffany came in with all their pieces wrapped and ready to be tacked together. They still had a few pieces left to grind but handled that with ease. After they finished wrapping the remainder of their window they finished tacking the center together and called it a night. And now that it is tacked together I can lift it up and show you a picture of the full window this week. They’ll add a final border to the next week and then start soldering!

Lastly we have Jane who got started on 3 separate projects this week. Why is she so ambitious? We’ll she’s not going to be able to make it in during the next 3 weeks and she wants to be sure she has enough to keep her busy while she’s at home. She’ll be making the same Magnolia Window that Christine finished a few weeks ago, a Humming Bird/Morning Glory window and a Large cross. Below is the pattern for the cross that she’ll be doing. We’ll be missing her over the next three weeks but we know she’ll be home cutting and grinding away in her work shop!

Come back next week and see even more finished projects. We’ll also get to see what’s happening with Joey and Cheryl who are away this week at Niagara Falls…

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We were a little short on students this week due to vacations and the fact Russ had surgery on Monday which was supposed to be an out-patient situation but we managed to stretch it into 2 days when they finally admitted him and made us spend the night at the hospital. He wasn’t admitted until 8pm so it was pretty late when I began scrambling to cancel the  Tuesday morning classes.  And I say ’scramble’ because I discovered on Monday night that most of the phone numbers I needed where on the computer at home rather than in my cell phone. Luckily I had Jane’s number and she was able to help me get in touch with everyone before they made made a trip out to the Bayou Tuesday morning to discover that we weren’t there.  Russ was released around 8:30am on Tuesday morning and by the time we got his prescriptions filled we had arrived back at home around 11:00 or so.
That night I had a class with Jimmie, Tiffany, Mary Lynn, Janice and Grace who all made great strides in the completion of their windows. Grace finished cutting the bottom LSU section of her window and then moved over to the grinder to fit it all together. Once it was all ground she joined her mother and Mary Lynn and began wrapping her pieces. Pictured below are the pieces that she has completed (ground and wrapped). Grace took the parts that are missing home with her to wrap during the week and we’ll see them again during our next class when this gets tacked together and she then begins working on the harder ‘eye’ section of her window.

Janice finished all the grinding on her oval window and spent most of her class wrapping her finished pieces. It was slow going at first but she got faster as she moved along until she had a good three quarters of it wrapped before she left. What she didn’t finish wrapping here at the shop went home with her so she can wrap it throughout the week.  We’ll end up tacking this all together next week and then begin working on the remaining pieces to square the window off.

Mary Lynn was moving along at the same speed that Janice was and as a result of that she has all but a quarter of her window wrapped. Like Janice, Mary Lynn started off slowly but I think that by the end of the class she was amazed at just how much she got accomplished. Wrapping those first 3 or pieces makes you think that you’ll never get them all finished, but Mary Lynn easily held her own throughout the night. Look for this to be tacked together next week when we’ll be able to hold it up and really get a good feel for what the colors look like. There’s only about 16 pieces left to cut and grind before these oval Iris Windows are completed.

Tiffany and Jimmie were busy grinding all the pieces they had cut in the past 2 weeks and they made terrific progress. They easily have about 80% of their window finished and took  most of what they ground home with them so they can begin wrapping. There’s a good chance that we’ll see this tacked together next week which means that they’ll be deciding on a border color so we can finish off this window.

Jane, who’s normally a Tuesday morning student, was able to show up for class on Wednesday morning and came in with her second Birdhouse Window completed save for the border. After we cut that out on the strip cutter we added wire feet to her birds and then finished up the small amount of soldering that was left. She’s going to color this at home but you can’t tell from the picture below that it isn’t already colored so we’re giving it the full scale treatment here in the Blog this week so you don’t have to click on it to see the large picture.

Joey and Cheryl were in on Wednesday night but as soon as they arrived Cheryl found herself called back to work.  I did see the progress she made throughout the week on her Hot Air Balloon Window but for some reason I didn’t remember to snap a picture of it before it was carried back out the door.  Cheryl has all but one of the balloons ground, wrapped and tacked together and it’s really taken shape.

Joey stuck around and we did our best to figure out the best way to lay out all his pieces for his 5 cabinet windows on the glass so we could minimize waste.  We were able to get it all traced out on the available glass and even got it all cut before the night was over.  The only thing we’re short on is 3 or 4 of the peach/shrimp/pink color that he cut last week.  After all the glass was cut Joey even managed to get one of the doors ground  to the pattern before calling it a night and heading home with some glass to wrap.  We won’t be seeing Joey or Cheryl next week because they’ll be at Niagara Falls but we will see them the following week.  It was a fun class just having Joey here with me — we rarely get to talk so I enjoy the one on one time with him where we could actually hold a conversation that lasted more than a minute or two! Here’s his first door…

And that was it for this week.  Things should be back to normal (for the most part) next week so expect a bigger Blog entry then!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

Ellen came in knowing that she would have some soldering to do on her window this week. While she worked on the back side of it Jane and I were contemplating the best way to finish off her window. And once that was done we concentrated on drawing up Ellen’s next pattern. Still, we managed to get Ellen’s Wrought Iron Window completed and we have a great picture of it. The deep blue Bullseye glass stands out nicely against the clear glass background and the thick black lead lines. The black sections in the center panel are all lead (not black glass) and really give this window a great look. Once again we have another great window from Ellen.

Chris visited us from Texas for a few days and spent roughly 10 hours making a window which denotes his profession. Apparently no one calls him by his name so he answers to the name “Coach” which is the subject of his first stained glass window. As you can see from his finished project he didn’t have any problems working with glass at all. The letters are actually done in purple waterglass but look much darker in the picture because we had to shut off the light behind it to get the picture to come out without a huge glare behind it.  Dark letters or not, it looks great. Good job, Chris!

Jane worked on finishing her Moose Window this week. She only needed to add a border to it and then the word MOOSE somewhere on the border. My original idea was to us etching cream to etch the letters into the glass but it didn’t stand out enough to actually see the writing unless you were right on top of it. Then Jane suggested using wires to form letters. She said this while I was looking at Ellen’s window which then gave me an idea. We cut the letters out of copper foil and then applied them to the border attaching the top to the lead line and the bottom to the brass channel that surrounds the outside of the window. Once it was firmly attached we put solder over the foil and had letters that stand out nicely against the border. I’m just glad to had an exacto-knife around or cutting these letters out would have been impossible. Jane needs to solder the back of the border pieces and then color this window to finish it off.

Fran finished wrapping her Rooster and then tacked it together. She spent the rest of the class soldering the front side of it. This will be finished during her next class without a doubt so be sure to come back next week to see what it looks like finished and hanging with some light behind it. Fran has ordered a grinder so she can start doing more work at home while she’s not here in class. She’ll be working on a seafood window next. Look for the finished Rooster and a look at her newest pattern next week.

Janice continued grinding her Iris window. There’s not much to say here about it this week but next week we’ll most certainly have her wrapping her finished pieces. That’s when the picture will really give you a feel for what the window will look like.

Meanwhile, Grace went to work on her first window. She traced out her pattern and then did exactly what I told her to do and put the grain lines and color markings on the original drawing rather than the heavy paper pattern that we cut up and trace out onto the glass. Luckily I realized that I had her label the wrong pattern before she cut it up which made it a little easier to fix the mistake I had her make. But together we were able to fix the problem within a few minutes and then Grace moved on to cutting out the lower ‘Letter’ portion of her window. It looks like she’ll have only 4 pieces left to cut out next week before we get her grinding the bottom part of her window.

On the second grinder we had Mary Lynn arduously working away getting her Oval Iris Window to fit together perfectly. She’s got a good portion of it finished and I expect well see her wrapping pieces next week so we can tack this together and get the final border on. This window is looking good!

The Address Window that Joey had finished last week is now hanging in the front window of Cheryl and Joey’s house and was noticed by by just about all our students who drive past it on their way to class.  We heard nothing but compliments from everyone who saw it. :-)  With that project finished Joey has begun working on 8 cabinet doors for their kitchen. He’s cutting them all out at the same time rather than doing them one at a time because it’s ultimately fast to do it that way and you also manage to use less glass when you cut them all out at once. Although the picture below looks as though only 11 pieces of glass are cut, there’s plenty more than that because the pieces are stacked 5 high. Joey is using the pistol grip cutter for all of this project and he’s already got the hang of it. We’ll see some clear glass cut for these windows next week.

Cheryl continued working on her Balloons while she was in. She has 2 completed, one halfway wrapped and a forth one all cut and ground. That leaves only one left to go before she starts cutting the easy part of the window. Since the last balloon has only 16 pieces in it I’d say that she’s got the hardest part of the window finished already. Her larger balloons have 61, 81, and 63 pieces in them!

Our second husband and wife team are showing us how fast 2 people can get one large window finished. Tiffany and Jimmie finished cutting out all of their background glass and then moved on to grinding it. They have about a forth of it ground already as you can see in the picture below. They’re moving quickly and I’m sure we’ll see the name section of the window ground to fit next week.

Gerald began working on the lower left section of his window while he was in.  He has the All but one Iris cut and ground.  He’s using all art glass in this project and you can see the difference in the flower petals even in the picture below.  Gerald will be in Texas next week so we won’t see any progress during our next class, but we will in 2 weeks.

It was a busy week here (that’s nothing new!) and we didn’t even have all our students in. Come back next week to see how far everyone has gotten!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Well, Cheryl started it but Joey ended up finishing it which makes this window the first of two joint projects this week. We weren’t sure about how it was going to be hung but when the actual window was brought in I knew we’d have no problem at all since I’d done a few like this in the past.  What made this easy is the fact that the window this is going to hang in can be removed for cleaning. Joey just sized his stained glass window to be the exact same size of the one that pops out and then used a thick zinc channel very similar to the channel around the original window. When he got home he just pulled the original window out and snapped the new window into its place.  And it went in perfectly! Now I’ll have to drive by to see it in front of their house. This window was finished on July 4th, 2007. Now look at the color scheme that was used. Coincidence? Who knows….

Mark worked long and hard at grinding the remaining pieces of his Magnolia window this week and save for the flower stamens and two thin pieces of white trim it’s complete. The funny thing is that each time I posted the pictures of Mark’s progress I posted them ǝpısdn uʍop! When it didn’t fit together because it was still unground you couldn’t really notice it, but as soon as I moved in to take a picture this week I noticed it immediately. It’s amazing what a difference grinding makes. Anyway, it’s looking great and should be finished soon now.

Mary Lynn was able to finish cutting all of the oval section of her Iris Window out and then she moved over to the grinder to get everything to fit together. She’s moving right along and making good time at it as well. You can see the bottom and left side of the window is ground in the picture below.  It’s really starting to take shape now.

Gerald finished his Rooster Window last week and began working on his latest project when he came in Tuesday night. Gerald never takes the easy way out with his windows and I can honestly say that no one in my 25 years of teaching has ever attempted a project this large. It’s almost 5 feet long and 3 feet tall! To make it easy to transport he’ll be doing it in sections. He traced out his pattern and began cutting it out this week; cutting starts next week…

Fran has her rooster all wrapped and ready to go. She had taken it home to wrap last week and ground the head of it when she came in this week. I’m not sure how long it took her to wrap but the wrapping was flawless which means that soldering this will be that much easier. Look for this project to be finished soon.

Ellen tacked together the center of her window this week and then cut, ground, wrapped and tacked on her deep blue border. We added a zinc channel on it and all that’s left to do on this is to solder it. I have to say that when she showed me the pattern for this window I didn’t think too much about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for it– I just thought it was an average pattern. But now that I see it cut out and fitted together I have to say that I’ve changed my mind about this window. I love it! And when she changes the lead from a silver color to black it’s going to be spectacular.

Cheryl was busy working on another of her balloons for her Hot Air Balloon window. She got a lot accomplished at home this week (having finished cutting and grinding one of the larger more complicated balloons) and then she cut out another balloon of similar complexity in class this week. The background scenery will be really easy to do after working with all these small pieces and I’m impressed at how fast she’s moving throughout this project. In the picture below you can see the top balloon is the one she cut out during class. I believe there’s only one balloon left before she gets to work on the nice easy scenery in the background.

Our second joint project this week was done by both Tiffany and Jimmie who decided to make a large window for a transom in their home. Even with the two of them working on it together I have to say that I’m impressed at how fast they are moving. I figured something this size would take 2 sets of classes to complete but I don’t think it’s going to that long at all now that I see the two of them in action. With only the background left to cut I’m going to guess that they start grinding this window next week.

Lastly we have Janice’s Oval Iris Window (which will end up being a rectangle when it’s finished).  She cut out the ribbons that wrap through the double borders and then started grinding everything so it fits together well.  She’s really got the hang of it now.   You can see she has a lot of her leaves completed along with the bottom pieces.  She moving along wonderfully and we’ll see even more progress next week.

And that about wraps it up for this Holiday Week here in the Bayou.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks