Replies

1. 
   joinerswork | May 12, 2010 09:28am | #1

   Lataxe,

   In keeping with the knots s.o.p. of replying to posts about which one has no pertinant information:

   A lead knife simply will not work.  The softness of the lead will require such a high included ange for the edge that you will not be able to push it thru the glass.  Besides, lead will hopelessly clog your waterstones.

   I got my came stretcher from the same co that made my board stretcher.  The name, however, escapes me at the moment...

   Hope this helps,

   Ray

1. 
   Lataxe | May 12, 2010 12:21pm | #3

   Raymond,

   You are a sarky rascal and I have sent nanny to give you a spank.  Just be thankful I haven't sent matron too, as she believes in washing things out in a vigorous manner with use of a Serious Pressure Aid!  After the initial cries of woe the victims patients go very quiet.

   Lataxe, a good little schoolboy.

2. 
   bones | May 12, 2010 11:28am | #2

   i'll shoot you a pm

   Lataxe, I'll shoot you a note with my Wifes E-mail address.  Ask her she can tell you what to use.  She's been at this for a while now and had done most types foil cane etch. and can give you good guidance.  She started out small simple stuff but has really learned from some true artists and can give you tips and reccomend brands and sources of tools     as well.   For her Christmas/Birthday I bought her a kiln for fire glass which is real cool.  She's making some real unique plates bowles vases etc even a tiffany lamp.   Anyway rather than translate your questions, I'll just have you go strait to her.   It's a cool hobby.  

1. 
   Lataxe | May 12, 2010 12:41pm | #4

   Bones,

   Thank you much for offering up your ladywife's wisdom.  I will email her this evening.

   I noticed that stained glass tools are generally few, quite basic and inexpensive - until one comes to items such as diamond wheel grinders and ovens.  I may have to get a grinder for the more complicated shapes. The tutor recommends shaping glass with glass cutter and grozing pliers-only at first (to obtain skill through lots of practice and mistakes) but admits that, for Tiffany lampshades and similar containing small/complex parts, the grinder is unavoidable; or at least a huge time saver.

   I'm hoping to avoid any need for an oven as the stuff I'm wanting to make is basically bits of finished glass bound with lead/copper and solder to go in furniture.  However, the course I'm doing is entitled "stained glass arts" so encompasses many techniques and items that are stand-alone glass decorative things. The techniques are basically along the lines of constructing "sandwiches" of various glass-based materials then baking them into a single object in a one of those expensive ovens. Glass cooking.

   There are some beautiful jewel-like pieces being made by students there who have gone in the direction of this art rather than making mere stained glass panels, shades and such.  It is very tempting to follow them, especially as the ladywife is Very Keen on the jewelry aspect, having seen and bought a couple of such items in the past, which often dangle around her swan-like neck.

   Meanwhile I have made a coaster which contains the image of a blue-leaved palm tree.  It is, er, interesting to look at.  :-)

   Lataxe

1. 
   bones | May 12, 2010 02:34pm | #5

   tools are few

   My wife started with the foil method a basic small grinder about 80 bucks if I remember It did make a mess with the water bath throwing the crap everywhere.  She made a back splash of cardboard but it was still a mess.   It wasn't till after she found a guy that gave classes on the side and was a true artist that he showed her how to take a small square aquarium and put it on it's side and put the grinder in it.  That took care of all the problems.   As to her other tools she had a basic oil filled cutter to score the glass.  A set of cheap nippers and that was it.   The expensive part is the glass and the forms once you decide to do the tiffany lamps.  when she moved up to the lead cane, a basic set of stretcher pliers that I keep in my tool box and she clamps into my workbench to use.   She did go through a couple soldering irons.   Anyway she can point in the right direction.   The kiln was around 800 bucks and with all the tools I've bought for my shop it was only fair.  She has it in my shop and it shares my jointer outlet.  Hey I do have an alterior motive.   I feel if she gets really good we can make a few bucks furniture and stained glass.    Anyway some tools she buys cheap some not so cheap, but I'll let you talk to her on that one.  

2. 
   Eef | May 12, 2010 02:45pm | #6

   lataxe,

   currently, there's all the fixings of a cabinet in my shop that i've been working on the better part of a year.  the sides are frame&panel in white oak.  the upper sections are divided into three openings each into which will be set six ceramic tiles of my own making.  i have looked into getting/making my own kiln but the logistics and costs are not do-able for me.  not sure if it applies to glass as well as ceramics, but after not too much effort, i was able to find "kiln space to let".  the rate is about 20 bucks/square foot. perhaps, by way of on-going relationship, several of your classmates could throw in together.

   eef

1. 
   Lataxe | May 12, 2010 06:29pm | #7

   Eef,

   The college where I'm doing the glass art course is run by the county council (Lancashire) with various commercial and subsidised finances.  Inevitably there are attempts to keep costs down so the glass and the ceramics share the same workshop including 3 ovens.  Unfortunately the ovens are those designed for ceramics so (the tutor tells me) are suitable but not ideal for glass.  Apparently the best ovens for glass are top loading and are heated in a way that ensures the temperature rises and cools in a certain predictable way, as well as being constant throughout the oven.

   Well, some of the glass students do use the college ceramics ovens and they melt the glass but.....a number of pieces have been affected by the ceramic heating patterns - trapped air bubbles, cold spots and similar glitches showing up in their pieces.

   ****

   But I'll confine myself to straightforward leaded and copper-foiled stuff for now - it's what I want for the few furniture pieces I have in mind anyway.  In time it may be best to look for a dedicated glass art production business in the area, as you suggest, to rent oven space/time.  One always prefer to mess about at leisure in one's own shed though.  :-)

   Lataxe, still amazed at how easily glass can be cut and shaped.

3. 
   bones | May 12, 2010 07:15pm | #8

   glass .vs. ceramics

   Indeed the there is a difference in ovens but not as much as you think.   It depends on the model.  A kiln can be as basic as a hand pulled lid and a dial timer or computerized  For instance the one I got can tecnically do ceramics but I'd have to add a motorized vent system because of the nasty stuff that comes off the firing of ceramics.  The one we settled on is basic but does have a monitor and programable temp/time.  Firing glass is all about setting the right pattern, process and hitting all the temps and times right and even then a defect in the glass can ruin it all.   The current setup will do pottery if we wanted but we got it for glass.  Of course none of this is required for what you are looking to do.  Glass does cut easy, but it will get squirly.  My wife's last project a lamp had a nice colored glass that every time she tried to cut it across for a long strain piece, it would hit a defect in the glass and just go with it.   Secondly, get use to getting cut.   I've tried to get the wife to use leather finger tips (gloves) when grinding but she says she needs to feel the glass.  Needless to say she generally has band-aids on serveral fingers all the time.  

4. 
   SawdustSteve | May 12, 2010 09:40pm | #9

   Cutting glass

   At some point in your glass-cutting future, you will say to yourself...   'Why can't I cut glass with my scroll saw so I can get those nice tight details'   Google 'Taurus Ring Saw'.  It's a small (5.25") throat saw with a carbide encrusted blade.  It is designed to cut glass just like a scroll saw with a spiral blade.   I've cut all sorts of intricate shapes without cutting, grozing and then grinding.  It runs about $300 USD, but if you're doing a lot of intricate shapes, it may be your answer.     You may also want to look at SGW.com   (Stained Glass Workshop).  Good supplies, reasonable prices and he carries most major brands.  He tends to stay away from the cheaper (shoddier) stuff.

   SawdustSteve   Long Island, NY  (E of NYC)

1. 
   Lataxe | May 13, 2010 05:21am | #10

   Steve & Bones,

   Thanks for

   Steve & Bones,

   Thanks for those very useful pointers; that scrollsaw in particular sounds like it might be good at handling the kind of glass Bones mentions - very beautiful because of its complex textures but prone to break along it's own "grain" as it were.  I can imagine the scrollsaw approach might avoid the unwanted breaking-departures that occur if  the normal glass cutting method is used on such stuff.

   And I haven't got a scrollsaw (more tool-buying opportunities).  :-)

   ***

   When I began woodworking I was put off handtools for a few years via the common mistake of using very poor ones of the modern down-to-a-price variety.  Eventually I discovered good handtools (and machine tools, come to that) which were helpers rather than barriers to the work processes.  I hope to have learnt the lesson well enough to apply to the acquisition of glass-related tooling.

   There is also a lesson concerning materials - cheap is often also nasty (not always).  Plywoods and blockboards are a good example; the less expensive stuff is often full of hidden woes. So I won't be going down what is likely to turn out to be a path of false economy when it comes to buying glass. 

   That being said, it it astounding what people throw away!  I wonder if it's possible to scavenge old but wonderful glass in the same way as I do with timber?  I've had for free (still got a lot) very fine timber of all kinds from a variety of sources where they usually burn or skip it.

   I have heard that old glass can be difficult to cut or otherwise reconfigure, because age makes it much more brittle.  But perhaps there are suitable techniques for re-cutting such stuff (scrollsaw perhaps); and surely different glass types will have different characteristics....? 

   It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has managed to salvage old glass to re-cut for use in a new item.

   Meanwhile I've cut around 1 square metre of 3mm thick float glass into many, many shapes, just for practice.  So far no cuts to the fingers. I am very careful with my precious person, especially the appendages at the working end , since I am a big softee when it comes to pain and have been known to faint at the sight of my own blud.  Nevertheless, there is a now a new box of sticky plasters close by.

   Lataxe, skip-diver and scavenger (saves money for more tools).

1. 
   bones | May 13, 2010 09:32am | #11

   salvage glass

   Yep, you can.  I've gotten several old doors that unfortunately are eat up rotten etc, and the wife had me save the glass.   The really old stuff that was hand floated and you can tell that stuff is a gold mine.  She has now a good collection of glass pieces to pull from.  some of the stuff is nice but you pay for it.   She went and visited a shop yesterday and bought a piece of seed glass that matched the glass in the cherry hutch i made.   It was about 30" x 30"  and 30% off was 70 bucks.   I'm making a wine cabinet that will match the hutch and it will be nice to have that glass match.  I'll also have a bit extra should the unthinkable ever happen a broken pane.   Around here you'd be surprised how many antique stores are using old window sash's painted with a country motif and grape vine added and sellthing them by the boatload.    As to the scroll saw I offered to get her a very nice one and she said no.  The main teacher she learned the most from back in saint louis got much more traction from a basic grinder and glass cutter.  This guy had a large shop and did a lot of church window reclamation.  You would be shocked at how much money is in that but it's complicated and to find the matching glass challenging.   I went with her on numerous ocasions to glass shop and what I saw this guy do (and his son) was amazing.   

   You will find that the foil is actually harder as you need to be pretty dead on shape wise, while the lead cane you need only get close.  (this is per my conversations with my wife).   It all looks hard to me, but then she says the same about my woodworking  

5. 
   WillGeorge | May 13, 2010 10:25am | #12

   Latake..

   I have only made a few small stained glass projects. Much fun but I could never master 'cutting' the glass.

   I do have one suggestion for you. Wear safety glasses!

   Several years ago I got a chip of glass in my eye. It was not while doing a stained glass project.  I was only trying to cut some common 1/4 inch plate glass. I got the 'sliver of glass' when 'snapping' the cut. The procedure to remove the glass from my eye cost my insurance company ALOT and then there was my Co-Pay.. They then cancelled my insurance...

   Some cool stuff here.

   http://www.creativeglassguild.co.uk/glass-guides.htm

6. 
   roc | May 14, 2010 09:51pm | #13

   Worth a look Better late than never

   Lataxe, I went searching on line for a friend from long ago who did stained glass in a big way to ask her about your questions. I didn't find her but wound up talking with this person who does stellar work from what I have seen of it. Her studio is a stones throw from where I am. I passed along a couple of pics of your hay rake table so she knows you'er "legit ". A friendly and helpful sort she has written a reply to pass along to you. By the way every one should go to her site ; very pleasing work. She says: Hi Rocky, I woud tell your friend to go with a Weller iron and Glastar tools. Those brands are reliable and very tough and long lasting. His work is beautiful and I wish him well! http://www.glassylady.biz/