Stained Glass Ida & Alice

The Basic Guide

STAINED GLASS

L COPPER FOI

GLASS CUTTER

SOLDERING IRON

LEAD CAME

GROZIN G PLIER

PENCIL

FLUX

S

SC

MARKER PEN

SET SQUARE

OR ISS S

GLASS

E SAFT

ASS L G Y

ES

PAINT BRUSH

BASIC M Sketch your design

Draw on your cartoon with ink

Lead it together

Solder all the joints

METHOD Cut out your shapes

Cement it to make it waterproof

Cut the glass to the shape

Mount it

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CUTTIN

NG GLASS Cutting your glass is a process which requires accuracy and precision, or else your pieces will not fit in with each other in the end. The tools you would need to do this is some cutters, strip cutter, straight edge guides, oil and grozier pliers. A carbide glass cutter is what is m ost commonly used, and it looks kind of like a scalpel with a little wheel on the edge, which helps with a smooth cut. You can put oil in some cutters which keeps the wheel lubricated.

To cut you simply put pressure on the glass with the cutter, and cut along the shape you want. This creates a score line. To break it you can either pry it with your hands, or use pliers. Some shapes which are more curved may break extra bits of the glass.

Therefore, you might need to make more score lines, and break a little bit at a time. To refine the shape, you can use grozier pliers to nibble at the edges. To get many straight lines with the same thickness, for example if you are making a frame, you will need to use a strip cutter.

LEA

D CA M

Lead came is the most commonly and traditionally used material when it comes to assembling a stained-glass window. Most church windows or old homes use this as well. In more modern times new forms of lead has been created that are stronger than medieval lead. It comes in other various materials based on weight and use, like zinc, brass and copper. However, in comparison with other materials, lead is soft, and must sometimes be stretched to avoid sagging.

The came is often made 2 m in length with different widths. It is shaped like an H or a U depending on which part of the picture you are working on. First you make a 90-degree corner out of metal or wood to start assembling your window, then lay out your cartoon and start slotting your U-shaped channels on the edge. You proceed with slotting the corresponding glass into the U-shaped channel. This is the start of your window, and from here on you use H shaped channels to slot the glass into. The lead is very soft and mendable, and you can bend it around corners.

ME

Soldering To make sure all the lead came stays in one piece, you solder it all together. To do this you use a solder, which is a part tin part lead alloy, in the shape of a wire. You lay the solder on the came, and use a very hot iron rod to melt the solder, until it quickly becomes liquid. Quickly lift the solder wire off or else it will become solid and stuck to the came.

SOLDER

COPPER FOILING A newer technique called copper foiling was invent ed by the famous Louis Tiffany, behind the Tiffany lampshades. Therefore, this technique can also be called Tiffany stained glass. The thought behind it was that lead was too heavy for the things he wished to create. Copper was as easy as lead to form, plus it is small and very light. Now people could make 3d stained glass creations.

The method consists of using copper foil strips coated with adhesive on one side. You flatten it against the edges of the glass panels. Make sure the glass in placed directly in the middle of the foil, and that it is straight. Without a straight line, it might stick out like a sore thumb when it has been sol dered. You then fold the edges that stick out over the front and back of the glass. Go over it with a flat object to flatten it completely. The copper foil should now have created a U-shape around the edges.

Soldering Soldering copper foil might be the biggest step in this process. You use the same materials as for the lead came method, but you use a lot more of it.

Using flux, you cover the surface of all the copper foil. The flux ensures a smooth application, and without it the solder would lump up. Then you take the solder and do the same as with the lead came technique, but covering the entire foil instead.

DALLE DE VERRE

Dalle de Verre, meaning ÂŤglass slabÂť, is commonly used for thicker glass that are about 3 centimetres thick. It was developed by Jean Gaudin, who has a French painter, glass and mosaic artist, back in the 1930s. Instead of came it uses cement or epoxy resin as filling.

The cement was replaced with an epoxy matrix when it was introduced in the US due to different climates.

The method for making Dalle de Verre is to first shape the glass by scoring the glass with a glass cutter, then breaking it with a carbine hammer.

Chipping the bits away (faceting) will create different reflections and other light effects. The pieces are then laid out on the cartoon drawing to ensure the pieces are a good match to the original. An important step before creating the final piece is to coat the top side of the faceted glass with a clay like substance called Sculpey, which ensures they aren’t covered with the cement/ epoxy. They are then laid out on a bed of sand, inside of a waterproof frame. To get the same pattern without laying them on the cartoon, you draw your cartoon on a piece of hard clear film, and lay it over your design to see if it lines up below. You then pour the filling between all the pieces, up to the clay. The filling will sink a bit in to the sand. The top is then covered in sand again before it stands to set for 24 hours. This is the single pour method. You can double pour by filling half the space with sand, pouring the filling, then flipping it after it has set and fill again.

1-2 Basic Kit 3-4 Method 5-6 Colouring Glass 7-8 Cutting Glass 9-10 Lead Came 11-12 Copper Foil 13-14 Dalle De Verre