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Click for larger
image of finished panel |
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Works Progress Administration
Poster |
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Works Progress Administration
Poster circa. 1930s |
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Click for larger
image of finished panel
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Lunette Stained Glass Panel
In early 2005 I built a leaded glass panel and custom wooden frame in the
shape of a half circle - a lunette in glass terms - as a wedding gift
for my sister-in-law. The design was developed from a section
of an historical example. The panel was custom sized to fit an
existing window opening in her bedroom that was glazed with clear
glass. This was strictly a hand tool project,
aside from a bit of glass grinding. I originally chronicled the
process, along with photographs, for the OldTools List.
Click on any of the thumbnail photographs below to
see a larger image
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Designing the Panel |
After my wife and I decided that I would build a custom
art glass panel for her sister's wedding present, I began looking
through my books and searching the internet for something
suitable. After emailing a few samples, she decided on a
pattern and colors. The advent of email and digital
images on the internet made this part of the process
relatively simple.
Another aspect of the process that's been made easier by the ubiquitousness of the computer is
development of a software programs that assist in drawing the
cartoon -- the full-scale line drawing of the piece. I
used Dragonfly Software's
Glass Eye 2000
program to draw the color version of the panel and produce the two cartoons need to
cut and build the piece. This is all so much easier than
when I was more active in glass back in the early 1980s.
Back then it was draw by hand and copy on a photocopier or
trace on tracing paper. Glass Eye 2000 is actually a CAD
program that's been modified to deal with the idiosyncrasies
of curvilinear glass shapes, glass colors & textures, and the
various shapes and sizes of
lead came - and it does all
of this very well.
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Building the Panel |
With
an April deadline, I
began the project in February. Since it was a bit cold
in the shop, I set moved into the bright and warm Breakfast Room. As the weather improved I moved to the shop to perform the messier jobs of grinding,
soldering, and puttying.
The cutting surface I used was low-nap indoor/outdoor carpet
glued to a sheet of 1/4" Masonite hardboard. This provided a
soft, yet firm, surface for cutting glass and it also allowed glass
shards to drop into the nap and out of the way until vacuumed off.
I clamped this surface to the breakfast room table, which is
actually a maple work table 8from Williams Sonoma.
The work surface is a sheet of plywood with two ledger
strips attached at a right-angles to one another. As you
can see, this is clamped to the Workmate in the corner of the
room. For a normal square or
rectangular, panel you start building from from the
intersection of the ledger strips and work
outwards. For this project, I referenced the bottom of the
glass panel off of the lower ledger strip. Note the paper
"cartoon," on the building surface. This cartoon
is a duplicate of the one cut up and used as a pattern for
cutting the glass. The cartoon on the work surface
serves as a
guide to keep the pattern from "growing on you."
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Piecing Together the
Glass Puzzle |
Here,
I have laid out the already cut glass pieces on the work
surface. The cutting patterns are still
affixed to the glass with
contact cement. The cartoon that serves as a glass cutting
pattern is cut to size using a special pair of scissors called "Pattern Shears. These shears have three cutting
fingers, which causes two cuts to be made when using them.
The end result is that a small sliver of paper is removed
between cuts leaving a space for the "H" shaped
lead came to
occupy. The next step from here is to begin the leading
process. Some glass grinding is necessary to keep
everything in alignment as the panel goes together.
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Soldering the Panel |
In
this photo, I
am almost finished soldering the lead
came joints. The glass panel has an 18 1/2" radius, which makes
it about 37" wide.
An interesting bit of trivia (at least to me) is that stained
glass is one of the few common uses for
horseshoe nails - other
than horseshoeing of course. Because horseshoe nails are
rectangular in cross-section, they are ideal for holding the
glass and the came tightly in place against the ledger strips as
you build outwards. A round nail would put too much pressure on
a very small spot and probably crack the glass.
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Cleaning Panel with Whiting and Elbow Grease |
This photo was taken in the middle of the clean up phase after soldering was completed and
glass putty was forced into the gap between the lead came and glass.
The putty serves to weatherize the panel, as well as to stiffen and
stabilize it.
This putty is a traditional mixture of boiled linseed oil,
whiting (calcium carbonate), plaster of Paris, lampblack, and
turpentine - mixed to taste. The whiting you see
sprinkled on
the glass serves to soak up any oily residue as well as to polish the glass
as I scrub it with a stiff brush.
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Completed Window - Without Frame |
Here, the completed window panel sits propped up in the shop
window, serving as inspiration to move on to the frame building
process.
Again, the panel size is about 37" wide x 18 1/2" high.
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Beginning to lay up the frame |
Since
the panel is a custom size, the frame will have to be custom as
well. Being an arch-top panel, I have decided to lay-up
the frame by gluing up five 1/4" clear-pine slats for the main body.
The photo shows the beginning stages of the process. I built a form
using a piece of OSB that I had laying around and used a
“spring-back”
calculation
that I found at
Woodweb to set the
radius. In other words, the arch of the form is a bit
tighter than the finished piece to allow for the fact that the frame opens
up a bit when unclamped.
Of course You know that you can't
have too many clamps.
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Cleaning up the frame |
This
is the initial cleaning and leveling up of the frame, which will
eventually be painted white to match the room trim, so I'm not too concerned with any
small gaps or voids between the ribs as they will be filled.
The ends are 6-8" longer than the final length and will be
trimmed to length once everything lines up. The planes in
the photo are a Stanley #4 and a #7.
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Completed Glass Panel & Recap |
The frame was laid up from 1/8" thick strips of clear pine,
resulting in a 1-1/4" wide visible frame. I also formed a 1/4"
rabbet for the glass to sit in using the same method, only using
1/4" strips about 3/4" wide. After planing the surface smooth,
I filled all gaps and irregularities with
Duram’s Rock Hard Water
Putty (the old house owner’s friend) and sanded it smooth.
I chose to make the joint holding arched top to the straight bottom a lose
tenon. The tenon is made from a 1/4” thick piece of re-sawn oak
set perpendicular to the frame bottom. After trimming, the
resulting tenon is about 1 1/4” wide at the bottom and follows
the curve of the side until the top of the tenon becomes a
point, about 4” up the side.
The finish consists of one coat of
Kilz primer and three coats
of Kelly Moore white, semi-gloss enamel. I rubbed this out using
2-F & 4-F pumice lubed with Paraffin Oil to a nice dull luster.
The panel is set in the frame using clear silicone.
I did make a moulding to hold the panel in place, but changed my
mind about using it after my wife said that it looked better
with the lead border showing. I was easily convinced because the
solder joints (bumps) and other slight irregularities would have caused quite a bit of
tedious work to get
the moulding to look and sit right (i.e. I was happy to take the
easy way out!). Overall, this was a very satisfying project that I enjoyed
AND actually completed on time!
Old Tools Used: 1920's Stanley #4 smoother, 1910's Stanley
#7 jointer, 1950's Stanley #65 marking gauge, an 1860's Hall
square, various chisels, a 1930's Disston Keystone backsaw,
an unknown maker’s “gents saw,” and a few others that I’m
probably forgetting.
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Stained Glass Links |
- Mike Savad has one of
the oldest and most informative Glass
sites
on the net. It'is on Geocities so it's
sometime unavailable due to usage limits.
- 2001 Miscellaneous
Glassworking Tips.
- Great side for Art
& Crafts, Prairie, G&G style art glass.
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