Marking dark glass

I like to use strong colours in my work, such as black, dark blue, crimson and dark green to contrast with lighter colours or clear glass.

Way back on my NVQ course we were told to use permanent markers on glass, and I've never really thought much about it, coping with dark glass as best I could and then forgetting about the problems with it until faced with another piece of dark glass on the bench that has to be cut to shape. I've generally used a black 'Sharpie' pen to mark up glass, which are easily obtainable and leave a permanent line, but I've found it very difficult to see the line on some darker coloured glass.

I took an offcut of Wissmach Midnight Blue English Muffle into our local stationers - Howells of Biggleswade - earlier this week, and tried a couple of pens.

I found that ballpoint gel pens (available in gold, silver or white) work quite well - certainly clearly enough to see the line to cut, and the line left by the gold pen is narrower (perhaps 0.2mm) than that left by a slightly worn Sharpie (which could be upwards of 0.5mm). The gold line may not be quite so permanent as that left by a Sharpie but it's more than adequate for the temporary marking needed to cut a single piece.

The gold line stands out much better than the black on red water glass (the black line can just be seen, to the left of the gold one):

I think the gold gel pen cost £1.49 so didn't break the bank, and the shelf over my workbench now has one ready for when I need to mark some dark glass.

Winter offer

I was at the craft fair at The Weatherley Centre in Biggleswade yesterday, and had a number of queries about the care and maintenance of stained glass and leaded windows. During the winter months (November to March) I'll have time to give free advice to any householder or business in the Biggleswade area regarding the condition of their panels, and how best to clean and maintain them.

Key points that people seem to be unclear about seem to be:

• Basic cleaning and polishing
• Impact of ageing on lead, how to spot it, and how to slow it
• Importance of cement in a panel and how it ages

My way of making Christmas Puddings

My grandmother used to make puddings for Christmas in February; I think that gave her time to add plenty of brandy!

I've a couple of craft fairs lined up for the next month or so and I thought of her when I was going through my offcuts shelf recently, for I found a piece of brown/multi colour (fairly) opaque glass that I think I used to represent stone on my image of Bingley church:

I got to thinking whether I could make up some passable Christmas Pudding suncatchers (or tree decorations). I had several offcuts of opaque white to represent sauce (or icing); after playing with a cardboard template for a while I cut out a couple of samples and edged them in copper foil.

Rather than edge the brown glass to mate with the white in a single plane, I've chosen to plate the white over the brown disc. One sample has copper edging all round; on the other I've just edged those edges I'm going to solder - the appearance of the final piece, without a solder edge between the white and brown, may be better than that with, at the possible expense of strength - I'm not sure how well the piece without the supportive soldering will hold together.

I tinned these pieces using my 80w iron (itself tinned using multicore solder - it seems to be more effective for tinning irons than normal 60/40 solder and separate flux). I use plumbers flux paste, so, after tinning, the pieces were washed thoroughly, dried lightly with a towel, and despatched to the airing cupboard to dry off thoroughly.

Note to the unwary: failing to dry off all water after washing and before the next step (more soldering) will, very quickly, teach you why you should wear safety glasses when soldering!

Once dry, I soldered the pieces together and added a 4mm diameter loop of 0.4mm silvered copper wire, bought from a craft stall at Hitchin market. I also found some plastic decorative holly, meant for cake decoration - the only challenge with that was how to fix it to the puddings.

I ended up soldering another length of 0.4mm wire beside the loop, trimmed the holly and made a hole with a hot needle, and secured the sprig to the pudding by threading the wire hrough the hile and around the berries.

The one without the bottom run of solder (left above) is as solid as the other one; so long as it isn't biffed too much, or allowed to get too wet, it should hold together fine.

I did also experiment with adhesives (epoxy resin and UHU) to secure the holly to the glass but neither stuck well to the flexible plastic holly; both puddings therefore have been decorated using the soldered-wire-through-the-hole fashion, and are ready for the punters at the craft fair in Biggleswade on November 13th, and I've enough materials to make another eight by then (not all in the brown colour though) !

Panel with lettering

One recent commission was a present for a ruby wedding anniversary. Made mostly from red water glass, it features initials cut from glass, and the dates applied with Letraset.

I used lettering designs from a book, but found that the 'D' was wider than the 'P'; having checked with an expert on fonts and design I revised them to be have the same width.

The panel is made using copper foil, rather than lead came - this is often more suited to detailed work, but does involve a lot of soldering.

I included loops at the top corners; nylon cord was used to hang it for the photo, but the plan is to use a silver or chrome plated chain for it in the long term.

The red water glass has a rather interesting effect - note the distortion of the street lamp behind the panel in the photo!

Storing Glass

One of the challenges faced by anyone who works with glass is storing it in a way that a) is safe, b) offers some protection to the glass, and c) allows it to be seen and selected fairly easily.

In the past I've kept mine in boxes under a workbench, or otherwise hidden away, and a consequence has been that I've ended up buying a piece of glass for a job for which I've already got something suitable, and I then end up with loads of quite expensive glass that I might not use.

I had an old bookcase in my garage which has come to the rescue. The bottom shelf is big enough to take an A4 file without any of it protruding; a coat of white paint and suddenly it started to look the part.

On the top two shelves there's plenty of space for tubs of cement, whiting, and containers of small offcuts of glass. The bottom shelf is ideal for the larger sheets, but I had a problem - how to keep them in a way that that allowed me to see what I had.

A visit to Wilko's solved that: these magazine files are available at £2.75 each, and have holes to allow them to be hooked onto a pair of screws - ideal to stop the file toppling over and breaking the glass.

I fitted screws to the back of the bookcase and, for the time being at least, I have enough storage for my glass! I bought five of the magazine files to start with, and have since got another three; there might be space for one more should I need it.

Some simple discs make a huge difference to garden table and chairs

We had an old metal garden table and chairs rusting in the corner of the garage. They had circular insets containing ceramic disc tiles that weren't terribly inspiring.

Removing the ceramic tiles wasn't a great challenge, and the table and chairs looked much better for a coat of white Hammerite.

To replace the ceramic tiles I made up two discs for each: one in plain mirror glass (sealed with varnish to keep the damp away from the silvering), and one in a coloured English Miffle pattern. The mirror reflects the light back through the muffle pattern, giving a sparkling finish that will stand out wherever the furniture is in the garden.

Ornaments and suncatchers from leftover glass

One of the problems that I get after making up some panels is that I have a small amount of glass left over. It's a shame to chuck it, so in between major projects I make up some small pieces to sell at craft fairs. Angels (above) are quite popular, although I'm not wholly keen on the copper foil work needed to make 3D items - it uses a lot of solder and the fluxes used for copper can make light work of a soldering iron bit ...

Small leaded panels featuring crosses or other simple emblems are also popular, and there can be some seasonal specialities, like for Halloween ...

 


I personally quite like moons - crescent, or half, as shown here; if I have a suitable piece of mainly white glass, a full moon can look good too ...

I try to keep these simple, so they can be realistically priced at just a few pounds, or less, yet still enable me to justify the time making them and attending the show.