Nearly Finished

We might fiddle with a couple of pieces of glass and lead came, but it's mostly ready for soldering. We also need to figure out how to cut out that metal border. We have a bunch of really long pieces and we'll need to cut them down to properly fit them to the outside edges.

Since we started this more than a decade ago, it will sure be nice to finally get it done.

Making Progress

I've been working pretty steadily on my stained glass project and I think I'm on track to finish by the end of the month. I'm finding the closer I get to the end, the easier it is to motivate myself to work on it. 

This piece is going to suck! It will probably take hours of grinding to get it right.

More Stained Glass

We are going to try and fix up our basement this winter so we're going to need to move out of it fairly soon; a project I am definitely not looking forward to.

So we are making another go at finishing our heraldic stained glass. I would like to finish it this month so we won't have to package it up again. I got in about four hours today.

We've gotten to the fiddly tiny pieces in the turtle's head but we're making good progress every day. If I keep at it, I will definitely be able to finish it this month if only I can avoid getting distracted by some quilting project. LOL

Day 3 - Slow Progress

I've been trying to split my days between sewing and working on the heraldic stained glass. Progress has gotten pretty slow as I'm having to refit quite a few pieces because we changed to using lead cames. 

We're actually trying a crazy experiment; we're going to solder the animals with copper foil and the diamonds with lead came. I don't know if it will work but I looked around and it might. I didn't really want to lose the fine detail on the animals, but the diamonds are just straight lines. It may turn out to be a disaster, but I hope not.

I finished another (diagonal) row today. The next row will take quite a bit longer as I need to refit many of the body pieces. Hopefully, I won't have to cut any new ones. 

I'll just keep plugging away at this project. I'd like to finish it this summer.

Stained Glass Again

In an effort to finish old stained glass projects so we can sell off the extra glass to clear space down in our basement, we are finally working on our old heraldic stained glass project we started in 2008! I thought about just abandoning this project because we're not active in SCA anymore, but I still like it and it would lovely to hang this up as a memento. We played a lot with SCA for more than a decade.

We dug through all the glass in the basement and I could not find any more of that clear glass I originally used, nor could I find a close match. So, ultimately I decided to replace it with a glass I had enough of. It's a bummer because now I have to repeat all that work shaping the glass around the rabbit, but I'll be much happier with the finished project.

We also decided to change this project from copper foil to leaded came. We don't have enough of the copper foil tape left to finish this project but we have a ton of leaded glass channels because when we made the panels for the cabinets we had to buy an entire box. We will lose some of the fine details around the paws, but we won't have to spend any more money on this project.

I hope we can finish this project this time; 13 years is more than enough to be hauling this around. And once I get this finished, I can turn my attention to other projects, like this panel for the front door and repairing a broken pane in the living room. 

My goal, once I finish the front door panel, is to get rid of all the excess glass we are storing in our basement. I have ordered a long arm machine with a frame and I need to make room for it.

Dredging Up Old Projects

We've been doing a lot of cleaning this summer. Since we've been trapped in our house due to the unbreathable air outside, we turned our attention to the basement this week. It's not quite time yet for photos because there's still a couple of piles that need to go away, but it's so much better down there.

I found this stashed behind the freezer:

We started this stained glass project before I started the blog—in 2008! I think the last time I posted about this was in February 2009. Then we moved to Redwood City and never worked on it there and without ever unwrapping it we moved it to Oregon and it got stashed/hidden in the basement. 

I'd like to work on it again. It's going to be a chore to dig through all the glass stashed under the stairs to find the rest to finish this project, but we need to sift it all anyway. It's time to decide if stained glass is one of the hobbies we want to maintain.

We also finally glued up a plant stand I made in a woodworking class in late 2011! I actually stained it way back in 2012 when we stained the master bedroom, but then it got stashed into a corner of the living room and we never got around to finishing it.

Now that it's glued up, I'll probably varnish it rather than shellac it because I plan to use it for plants and so it will likely be exposed to water.

Amazing Art Glass Catalog

I found the most amazing art glass catalog recently. There are so many fantastic color pictures I cannot include them all here. It is the International Art Glass Catalogue by National Ornamental Glass Manufacturers Association of the United States and Canada. It was published in 1914. These are just the color pictures I liked. There was also lots of clear leaded glass and beveled glass designs I am not including.

Leaded Glass Pattern

In typical fashion, I am flitting around my different projects. Last night found me playing with Corel Draw. I really need to learn how to use a photo editor so I can make patterns for making tile, leaded glass and/or stencils. I have a pretty old version I bought about 5 years ago, but it still does the job well enough for my needs.

This is the leaded glass panel I was considering for our front door.

Tonight (or rather last night by the time I got this finished) I managed to draw it out in Corel Draw. I had to extend the height so it would fit in our door. It is nice that CorelDraw can print out this large design across multiple pages so I don't have to pay extra to have it printed on a plotter.

I still have a lot to learn, but this project went pretty well.

Update: And for the record, I also tried making this pattern in SketchUp. In the old Google days of SketchUp it would have been pretty easy to make this pattern, but the new company that owns SketchUp has stripped nearly every worthwhile feature out of the free version (SketchUp Maker). Since I cannot justify paying $700 for the pro version, I guess my SketchUp days are over. I may eventually spring for another CAD program if I can find a good value, but I'll make due with other programs for now.

William Morris Art Glass 1910

I've been poking around antique catalogs again. This time I found a 1910 catalog from William Morris. It contains metalwork and art glass and if you'd like to download the catalog, you can find it here.

What's Next?

Jeff and I managed to get the guest room all cleaned out for our guest. (No pictures at the moment, because the room is already occupied.) Many of the boxes stored in there were unpacked, but there is still a pile of them in my closet. I'll get to those later as I just don't want to overclutter my sewing room yet.

I managed to not turn on my gaming PC today and instead listed about 10 items on craigslist. (Go me!) I'm again attempting to escape the allure of MMOs to actually get some stuff done in real life. (Our current game is Final Fantasy 14.)

I have started to disassemble the Roman shade panels from Redwood City and I'm planning to convert them into curtains. I had originally planned to just add some width and use them as is, but now that I've had time to think about it, I'm going to unassemble them a lot more and actually insert squares with purple fabric into the mix. I like the fabrics I originally used, but if I add purple, it will go really well with my stencil. :D

Jeff and I are also thinking we're ready to make another leaded glass panel, this time for the huge glass panel in our front door. Yeah, that's a lot of clear glass.

We've been looking around my pinterest images and our current front runner is this design.

It's still mostly straight edges with some curved edges. I think we're up to the challenge. Jeff is working on the pattern in postscript. Once he's done, we'll start poking thru our glass collection. I believe we'll change the color of the flower to purple (rather than the red).

Great Period Resource

My new friend, and Laurelhurst neighbor, donaleen, gifted me with a copy of a reprinted period house catalog. I believe the original book was published in 1921 by the Morgan Woodwork Organization and was called "Building with Assurance." The catalog was reprinted in its entirety by Lee Valley Tools Ltd. in 1987, under the title Homes & Interiors of the 1920's. When donaleen placed the book in my hands, I got so excited when I thumbed through it.

This catalog is loaded with great pictures: Millwork, doors, windows, wainscoting, leaded glass, stair parts, breakfast nooks, built-ins and more. It has something like 400 pages of great detailed drawings.

I'm going to show some of my favorites, so this post is very picture heavy. I'm going to put in a page break, so if you want to load the pictures, you'll have to open the post.

Here are a few of my personal favorites.

I'm always happy to find stained kitchen cabinets. The brackets on the upper cabinets look almost exactly like the ones we put in our kitchen.

Fun with Glass in the New Garage

Samples Jeff made during class

Now that the garage is done but we haven't moved all our stuff into it, we had a magic opportunity to use the space to hold a class in lampwork glass bead making.

We had a beginning class in the morning and an intermediate class in the afternoon with six students in each class. The instructor demonstrated several techniques then we would get a chance to experiment.

Leaded Glass is Done!!

All the leaded glass panels are finished and installed. And with a whole day to spare before the tour. We are extremely excited!! We've been straightening up for days and we also had a cleaning service in this afternoon, so things are looking pretty nice right now.

We're just so happy to be done! Now maybe we can get back to our previously scheduled projects: the garage and shellacking the master bedroom.

Leaded Glass Panels Cemented!

Jeff spent a fairly unpleasant week cementing leaded glass panels. While the process isn't particularly difficult, it is messy and smells awful! Again, we're not going to presume to give a tutorial as there are far better resources available elsewhere:

Cementing: How to Weatherproof and Strengthen Leaded Glass Panels
How to Cement Leaded Glass Windows

Jeff's finally finished all 10 panels and the last two are drying. He has also started installing the panels in the cabinet doors. It is a fairly slow process because the mouldings and nails are so tiny, and he's working right next to the glass. He has to be very careful.

The kitchen is done!! It's difficult to get a good picture of this glass because there is a ceiling height cabinet facing it. But now that there's finally glass to prevent dust, we've cleaned out the cabinet and commenced sprucing it up!

Parlor Leaded Glass Complete!!

Woohoo! All four panels of the parlor leaded glass panels are assembled. We still need to cement and clean them and more permanently install them, but we're really excited to have managed to get so much progress done on this major project in the last couple of weeks. Though, it will be nice to have time to do something else again...

Last Set of Leaded Glass

We spent much of the day cutting glass. The border is cut and now the glass is all cut; tomorrow we'll start putting these last four panels together.

Jeff also gingerly removed all the old panels from the bookcase cabinets so we can fit in the new panels when they're done.

Another Panel Done!

We guess it's time to clean up this cabinet and put in pretty stuff. Count to date—six panels done!

Right colonnade leaded glass

Lovin' Leaded Glass

Today we built our first colonnade leaded glass panel! This is the largest panel we're doing for this project of ours.

Left Colonnade Leaded Glass

Our building process has gotten pretty efficient. Once Jeff figured out how to print the pattern pieces for the leaded glass from his computer, our speed more than doubled. And the glass pieces are so uniform Jeff was able to print out only ONE pattern piece (one of the interior rectangles) and we were able to size all the other pieces off that one.

We also successfully built this panel without the large overall pattern, saving a lot of effort. These pieces are uniform enough we can just cut them out and put them together.

Also, once Jeff figured out we should use the strip cutter, our pieces became very uniform and fit together quite nicely with little grinding.

Jeff cutting 2" strips for border

So, what we've figured out to do is to work together and strip cut all the pieces for the panel. Then we go back and do the final shaping for fitting in the bevelled squares.

Glass pieces for project before final shaping

Glass pieces for project after final shaping

Then once we've shaped all the pieces, we simply put the panel together, adding lead came between the pieces of glass.

Putting the leaded glass panel together!

It has also helped soldering three sides of the zinc border together, because then we are more likely to get an easier fit for the fourth edge.

First Colonnade Leaded Glass Panel

And now we're shopping around for tiny wood mouldings to install them in the cabinet doors.

Three wood moulding samples to choose from so far