The Easy Bleeder

Hi, it's me again. I know that it has been a long time but stuff happens. I am going to write a little (or a lot) about stained glass. Once I find out how to add pictures to my hubs, I'll include some pictures of my stained glass work and some carving items.

I have enjoyed working with stained glass long before I started carving wood spirits on walking sticks. One of the reasons I started carving was because my wife and I were doing a lot of traveling in our motor home and we didn't have enough room for stained glass tools and supplies. It was fairly easy finding a stick some where, sit down and start carving. Anyway, we don't travel like we used to so I started doing stained glass again.

I started out making sun catchers, mostly butterflies. Later when I started making fairly large crosses, I would use pieces of the left over glass from the cross and make a matching butterfly. People thought that was pretty good. So I made crosses, butterflies, initials, humming birds, little glass angels,etc. I actually sold a few!

As I started becoming more adept at the art of cutting glass, grinding, fitting, foiling, soldering and using patina, I tried to do more complicated patterns. After wasting a lot of glass trying to make tight inside cuts, I bought a glass cutting band saw. Now I could make cuts that I couldn't begin to do before. As time went on and as I turned 81 this past August (2010) I took on a commission to do eight stained glass windows for the United Methodist Church in Humble, Texas. The windows are 21 inches square and are located in the Sanctuary. I have finished six of them and have just started number seven. When I get them all completed and they are installed in the church, I will take some pictures and, hopefully, post them here because somebody might be interested in seeing them.

It's difficult for me to understand those people who are afraid to retire because they don't know what to do. Life is good.

I think I'll write a little about the tools you would need to get started in cutting glass and making simple sun catchers.  You won't spend a lot of money in the beginning but like any other hobby, the more you get into it the better tools you will want.

You can go to your local hardware store and buy a fairly inexpensive glass cutter that has a blade on one end and a knob on the other.  It also has three or four notches that can be used for breaking off very small pieces of glass from the edge of the cut.  Get a piece of window glass, a broken piece from when you threw the cat through the window or a small pane of glass.  Place the glass on a firm surface.  Take the glass cutter and with the blade almost perpendicular to the glass press down, not to hard, and make a long "S" in the glass by pulling the cutter toward you.  You should have heard a kind of hissing sound as the cutter scored the glass.  Take the glass cutter and use the knob end to gently tap the score line from one end to the other from under the score line.  You will be able, if all goes correctly, to see the glass fracture along the score.  The piece should separate, so don't have the glass too high off the surface of your "work bench."  If it doesn't separate, tap a little harder along the score from the bottom.

Once you have made this cut, make several more straight cuts just to get the feel of the cutter and the glass.  I wasted a lot of glass at first but pretty soon I was able to cut the window glass pretty well.  Oh!  I wear glasses so I didn't worry much about tiny bits of glass flying around, if you don't wear glasses or don't want bits of glass hitting your glasses, you should get a pair of eye protectors.  Your hardware store should have them or the local stained glass store will have them.

Now you may have to go to your local stained glass shop because they have, or should have, breaking pliers and running pliers.  They will also have some very simple sun catcher pattern books for you to buy.  Look through a couple and see what looks simple enough for you to start.  I took my first book home and cut pieces of window glass from the pattern just to see if I could come close to what the pattern looked like.  It's better to waste the fairly inexpensive window glass than it is to waste the more expensive stained glass

Now, did your window glass pieces look pretty close to the pattern?  Your beginners book is going to talk a little about foiling.  Go back to the stained glass store or to your local Hobby Lobby store and buy a roll of 1/4 inch or 7/32 foil.  I mentioned Hobby Lobby because here in McAllen, TX, they have a 4o% off coupon in the Sunday paper every once in a while or you can go to Hobbylobby.com and hunt around there until you find where you can get on their e-mail list, or on to their coupon section.  Anyhow, 40% is 40%.  Now you are ready to do some foiling.

There are all kinds of "foiling" machines on the market, don't rush out to buy one just yet.  Open up the roll of foil, be careful on how you do this or the whole roll will unroll.  Snip off a piece of foil that you think will cover the whole piece you're going to foil.  Now you have to start taking off the backing from the foil.  Remove enough backing to get started and try to center your piece of glass in the middle of the foil so that you can see that the foil sticks out the same distance from each side of the glass..  Press the foil on the glass as you continue to remove the backing and placing the foil on the glass.  Don't expect a perfect fit the first time.  It will take some practice.

Once you have that piece of glass all foiled, you have to press it down on the edge all around the piece and then press it down on each side of the glass.  This is called, among other things, 'burnishing" the foil so that it will stick tightly to the glass.

After you have gone through this experience a couple of times, you might want to go out and buy an inexpensive foiler.  I did.  I used that cheap foiler for years and just recently got a more expensive one which does a good job.  On really small pieces of glass you may still have to do it by hand but you will have had that experience so it won't be a problem for you.

Now we'll get into fluxing, soldering and patina, but first I think I'll post this piece and see if I get any response and or questions before I go any farther.