Stained Glass: Let's Break Some Glass

It's pretty simple, but also difficult to cut glass accurately. Just place the pattern on the area of glass you think will fit what you are trying to express in your artwork. Score the line and break. In the piece pictured above, I wanted a section of glass that had only a few shards of green glass as the background. The piece of glass is located in the upper corner of the stained glass. The curves were formed with the wire saw and the glass grinder. I can't emphasize this enough: Make sure you keep your work pinned down! Do not allow any movement after the glass is cut. Also, keep the glass pieces within the lines to allow for the lead came.

I'm using two types of lead came. One is soft (curved lines) and the other is hard (straight lines). I like to use a plastic fid to form the lead to the contours of the glass. I cut the lead with a razor knife. The lead comes in 180cm lengths and is very easy to cut. I stretch the hard lead came before use to get any kinks out of it.

Pictured above is the plastic fid I use for forming the lead came.

Starting from one corner, I like to work my way to the most difficult areas of the glass first. In this case, the bevels require the most bends and require that all the pre-made pieces fit together closely. Some grinding was required to get everything to fit. That should be expected when working with a manufactured bevel cluster. Some people copper foil the bevel pieces and spot solder everything together. The bevels are then treated as one piece of glass. I chose to do it the hard way and lead the entire panel one piece at a time. I feel at this point I need to work on my skills before I start taking short cuts in my work. 

I continue adding bevels working very carefully to prevent any gaps from forming. Don't be afraid to press hard on the glass bevels and really force them into place. Take your time and fit the pieces as accurately as you can. The tighter the fit, the stronger the finished stained glass will be. That's very important for a cabinet door.

Please note the nails for supporting the glass have been omitted for clarity.

Here's the nails holding the piece securely in place. Typically the process goes like this: Lay the pattern on the glass, cut the piece, trim to fit, form the came, check the fit, trim as required, check the fit, nail in place and repeat.

Here's a piece with the pattern attached to the glass. The piece is then ground to shape. The sponge is used to keep the glass and grinder head wet at all times.  

Here's a photo of a lead came intersection. Note how tight the lead came pieces fit. This takes practice so don't be discouraged if you have small gaps.

The process is repeated until the panel is complete. I'll try to show you how I score and break glass in the next post.  Stained glass is frustratingly fun. As small problems arise, it's challenging to figure them out and to see the whole project come together. I think this hobby should come with a warning: Beware. Stained glass is addictive! Please stay tuned...

Stained Glass: Getting started

I thought this would be a good opportunity to show my readers how I do stained glass. It's been ten years so my technique is a little rusty. Hopefully this blog will help me work out some of the bugs and at the same time give you some insight into this wonderful hobby. I won't go into any written details, but I'll try to make things clearer with some photos. I taught myself how to do this so I'm sure there are a dozen other ways (and easier ways) to do this. I'll just show you what works for me and maybe you'll be inspired to try stained glass yourself. 

So let's get started...I like to frame my projects as accurately as I can with some inexpensive aluminum angles. I cut them roughly to size and drill a few 1/8" holes for the horseshoe nails. Use a framing square to make sure everything is square and properly sized. Take your time because this is the foundation of your project. Be as accurate as you can. When measuring, take into account the width of the zinc came (if you use it)...more on this later. This glass (one of eight panels) will be mounted in a cabinet door. The door will be milled to accept the glass, but the glass portion must fit the opening of the door panel accurately and hide as much of the zinc came as possible. BTW the zinc came is used to strengthen the glass panel since the cabinet door will open and close. 

Once everything is framed up, it's time to design and cut the pattern. A pattern came with the beveled iris glass pieces, but of course I wasn't satisfied with that. I went ahead and redrew the pattern and used some ideas from our own irises in our garden. I think it's important to create something unique and personal. This motivates me to do a better job and I hope the finished project reflects that. After the pattern is drawn it's time to trace the pattern onto either pattern paper or something I recently found on Amazon...Pipers Pattern Paper. This is the first time I've used it so I'll be curious about how well it holds up to water. I use a pencil tip that is wide enough (2mm) to compensate for the gap needed for lead came. The picture shows that I carefully cut on both sides of the line so the glass fits in the lead came channel. Again, I won't go into details about lead and zinc came sizes. It's very important to cut inside the lines or the glass will "grow" as you put things together. In other words, nothing will fit. 

Keep checking your work by making sure the pattern pieces fit inside the lines. Number each piece and I like to place the cut pattern pieces in a ziplok bag. I cut the patterns with a new razor blade and the straight lines with lead scissors. Lead scissors are regular scissors with two blades that cut on each side of the line. Some people cut their entire pattern with scissors, but I have a hard time going around corners so I prefer to use a razor blade.

This part of the project can be tedious and time consuming especially if you're eager to cut glass. Be patient and take your time. Glass is expensive. If the pattern pieces are inaccurate you'll be wasting a lot of time grinding or remaking pieces. That's a bad thing! 

At this point, the pattern should be accurately cut, numbered and safely stored in a ziplok bag.

For the larger pieces, I use pattern paper. The disadvantage of pattern paper is that it requires the pattern be traced onto the glass using a waterproof marker. Pipers Pattern Paper is supposed to be waterproof and you just peel and stick the pattern paper onto the cleaned glass. From there you cut and grind as required.

I place the original pattern back on the assembly board and prepare to cut some glass. 

It's important to place the pattern to match up with the zinc came width. Note how one edge of the zinc came rests on the line and the other edge rests firmly against the aluminum channel. The inside lip of the zinc came rests on the edge of the pattern.

  The glass edge rests on the edge of the pattern inside of the zinc came.

If you look closely. the glass fits inside the lead came. Can you see the 2mm gap formed by the lead came that I was talking about? Once you are sure the pattern is placed correctly, pin it down with a few tacks. This will keep the pattern in place until the first few pieces of glass are cut.

After the pattern is pinned down it's time to cut some zinc channel. This is where the aluminum angle helps keep everything square. Try to keep the gaps as tight as possible. Soldering will be easier and neat.

Some people use a miter saw with a metal blade, but I live in the Japan countryside and I use what I have...a Rotozip, vice and...

...a sander. I drew a couple of 45 degree reference lines to help speed up sanding the angles. Zinc is relatively easy to sand so it's a good idea to cut long and sand to size.

I finally made it to cutting the glass, but I'll save that for another post. 

Music is very important to me and it helps with creativity. The workshop needed a good sound system so I installed some speakers near the ceiling on each end of the garage.

We purchased a CD player at a garage sale in Seattle ten years ago. I think we paid $5.00 for it. The radio/ CD player is always tuned to my favorite radio station...Yufuin Radio. Please stay tuned...

An Unexpected Gift

One of my students surprised me with a delicious birthday cake. She was incredibly busy with her school work and making last second preparations for her high school trip to Canada. Yet, she took the time to prepare this lovely cake. It has my favorite topping (grapes) and Erika's favorite topping (chestnuts). The center has a pumpkin-like filling surrounded with a cookie-like crust. We thought the cake was professionally done and packaged. The not-too-sweet cake was irresistible. Thank you so much Chisato for your thoughtful and very kind unexpected gift.