|
|
|
ART OF STAINED GLASS Make Your Own Stained Glass Door Insets This tutorial seeks to enable you to gain the confidence to tackle a large architectural project. It is at once a satisfying accomplishment and a marvelous way to enhance your home in a special way. A larger project means that you have to adapt your normal way of working into a different scale in terms of physical organization. YOU FIRST STEP IS TO ARRANGE TO FIND A WINDOW MAKER THAT IS ABLE TO INSERT STAINED GLASS INTO THERMOPANES. Do NOT begin until this is settled. The project here, a pair of 22" x 64" glass insets called "Raining Rose Water," features a repetitive pattern made up for similarly-sized squares, triangles, and dodecagons (regular 12-sided polygons). You may download the pattern here: . The doors look a little different, but they are the same pattern, except that one is to be inserted in the door frame upside down relative to the other door. The same motif is available in different sizes, including matching sidelights. Please see complete set of free "Raining Rose Water" downloads.  Precision Glass Cutting This is a geometric, lead came project. As with all lead came, precision cutting is of the utmost importance; and with the cuts consisting entirely of straight lines, you will find that a cutting system like the cutter's mate is invaluable. It will combine speed, which is important when cutting so many pieces, and accuracy, which is much needed with lead came. With the Cutter's Mate, and following the easy, included instructions for cutting squares and triangles, I was able to cut the following in less than a day's work:
 Before tackling the dodecagons, the large pieces of Baroque, which come in 24" x 48" size, must be pared down so that they can fit in the Cutter's Mate. It is essential that you use a proper 48" T-square to score glass sheets this large. For this project, begin by separating the sheet in unequal halves, at the 66cm mark (26 inches), then remove about 2" of the sides, which are always poorly patterned and should be recycled. Owing to the way Baroque is manufactured, combining two types of glass that aren't perfectly compatible, Baroque has more internal stress, and running pliers are NOT recommended. The first cut can be broken against the edge of the cutting table, but the long strips along the side may need a little knocking on the back of the score line before being broken against the table edge.  Set up the grid of the Cutter's Mate so that the cutter's sliding bar car be extended maximally, you will need every millimeter. You need to have 3 square grids under the sliding bar (where 2 is often enough). The dodecagons were made by first cutting 161mm squares, then cutting away 4 pieces at 150 angles, starting at the 59mm mark.  The dodecagons were FLIPPED OVER (the Spectrum Baroque glass used for this cuts almost as well on either side), and without making any adjustments to the Cutter's Mate, cut away 4 more pieces from each 8-sided polygon, giving rise to perfect dodecagons. The 30° angles, being quite sharp, may result in some grinding ajustments around the corners. The dodecagons should be sorted out according to the quality of the swirls, if you choose to use Baroque glass as per this tutorial. The nicer patterns are reserved for the whole, centre pieces, while the poorer patterns are kept for the edge dodecagons that need to be divided. You can keep the better patterned part of these edge pieces for the panel, keep some for the very small edge dodecagons, and discard the rest.  After your pieces are cut, store them in a safe place. DO NOT cut the edge pieces yet! It's better to fit them as you assemble the panel, for best fit.  
A short note about Youghiogheny's 3000-SP, the color is actually quite different here than shown on their website.  |