Stained Glass: Fascinating Color and Light

Stained glass is much easier than it looks. I first want to dispel some of the misconceptions:

1. The artist does not make or color the glass.

2. There is no "firing in a kiln". The glass is bought in premade 12" x 12" sheets of colored glass. You select the texture and color you want.

3. You can cut you fingers, but it's not frequent if you handle the glass correctly.

4. Glass is not glued together; it is soldered.

5. Glass can be cheap or it can be kind of pricey.

This is not hard to get good at, but it is one of those things that you have to probably learn in a class to get immediate feedback. The best places to go are either a community college or a private studio with a shop. My teacher is David Riffkind at Kittrell Riffkind in Dallas, http://www.kittrellriffkind.com/ I learned not only how to make cool stuff but how to do it as easily as possible. I also learned how to fix things, because glass isn't always user friendly and you don't want to waste it. Let's go through the process:

SELECT YOUR DESIGN:
A design is basically a jigsaw puzzle of colored pieces of glass that YOU cut out to fit together! So you have to find a design you like, and if you are a beginner, you want to pick a design with less than twenty pieces. I would also suggest no feathers or grapes. Big pieces without excessive curves are good. You could make your own design, but until you know what shapes are doable, I'd go with one already created. Here's a good website for that: http://chantalstainedglass.50megs.com/ I can spend hours or days just trying to narrow down the item I want to make.

SELECT YOUR GLASS:

You can get glass at Hobby Lobby, the internet, and a studio you take lessons from. I like Hobby Lobby's selection and it's reasonable; $5.00 - $10.00 per sheet. If you are just starting out, you will find that certain types of glass are harder to cut (score) than others. Thick is bad. It will likely break away from your cut and you'll wind up having to redo it, throwing away the first piece that wound up cut wrong. I've wound up recutting TONS of pieces that were either thick or heavily textured. Secondly, if you fall in love with an opaque piece and want to use it in your artwork, make all the other pieces you are using opaque. If you want a transparent piece to be your main one, make them all transparent. When there is a light shining through it, the opaque pieces will come across as very dark compared to the transparent pieces.

CUT YOUR PIECES:

You will learn this technique in a class, but basically you have a scorer which is a little tool with a wheel on the end that cuts a line however you guide it, and then you use running pliers to break the glass apart along your cut. After one or two projects, this will be a cinch. You will not cut your fingers as long as you handle the edges with the flat of your finger and watch for slivers. To get rid of the slivers and to shape your pieces a little more exactly so that they fit well, you will use a grinder. This is actually the only thing that costs a little bit of money, maybe $100 at Hobby Lobby. Here's a website for tools: http://store.allstainedglass.com/index.html If you go to a class, the teacher will give you a list of tools to pick up.

FOIL THE PIECES:

Each of your "puzzle pieces" have an edge. What you do at this point to put 3/8" strips of foil tape right on the edge and slightly over the edge onto each side of the piece. Imagine wrapping Scotch tape around the outside edge of a CD case and 1/8 of an inch over the sides. This is just what you do with foil tape and your glass pieces.

SOLDER THE GLASS:

After placing the pieces together as closely as they will fit into the design, you'll wipe flux on the foiled edge that is face up, and then use a soldering iron and solder to attach the pieces to each other. Then you'll flip the project over (it will hold together) and solder the other side. Soldering can be a little bit dangerous, but after the first few projects you will learn to do the following:

(1) Protect your table by using a flat thin piece of plywood to do your work.

(2) Wear jeans when soldering. One blob of dropped solder will burn like heck and you want it to hit your jeans, not your leg.

(3) I've forgotten what I was holding before and tried to guide the soldering iron with my left hand, touching the tip of the iron. Holy Moly. Here's the thing to grab if you get burned (from the People's Pharmacy): soy sauce. I don't know why it works, but by the next day your pain will be minimized.

I hope this gets you excited about trying something new. If you don't see yourself as artistically gifted, it doesn't matter! This falls more into the category of a craft, and within one easy project, you will have enough experience to start beautifying your windows and eventually making cool lamp shades. Glass work takes many hours, especially in the beginning. Your first project might take a couple of weekends. Like I say, pick out something under twenty parts so you can finish it and get some success under your belt.