that was some break
didn’t see that coming at all!! my 30 day sabbatical turned into a 100+ day sabbatical. I have had the urge to work glass, but hadn’t managed to actually get it done. I have farted around here and there, plus I moved the entire glass shop out of the back bedroom into the dining room. then there was the Great Urine Debacle in Jan which required the removal of the carpet in the old glass room, and its replacing with vinyl. BUt that is a different blog.
One of the reasons I haven’t started any new projects is because I have this repair I need to do. I have had the thing for months and months. I feel bad. But I have officially begun the repair as of last night.
Original piece.
Unfortunately, the pieces have separated along the seam of the top leaf and sky. Where the wire anchors are. Too much weight on the lover half, without any support. Initially, I thought I could jsut push it all back together and add some support, but that wasn’t the case. And last night I realized that the branch that holds the leaf is full of cracks which were not apparent before because of the texture of the glass. so that entire piece is going to have to be replaced as well.
What I am doing is framing the entire piece. The whole thing will be inset into clear glass, and then framed in zinc and wood. The little leaves are all coming off and will be soldered on top of the piece, giving it a more 3D effect. Fingers crossed, it will all go together fairly easily.
pulling foil. this is the easy part. It gets much more complicated, lol.
Removing solder is a pain in the ass. the traditional way, with a wick, just doesn’t work for me. the ladies at Makin Glass said they use a piece of aluminum can to get between the two opieces and separate them. Tried it. After a little finessing, it worked fine. I use a 1/8″ tip which is not the best for removal. need to order a larger tip while i am thinking of it.
To extract the glass from the acorn, I am goign to have to break the glass out, without breaking the surrounding glass. Tricky.
I can't believe I thought it was a good idea to do this in the first place...
this part is actually fun.
You do this part by scoring the heck out of the glass, like a checkerboard and then tap it out. You have to be really careful to not transfer the percussion to the surrounding glass, fracturing it. This whole repair project is a good argument for more space between pieces, rather than a tight fit. Once you break some of it out, you can pull pieces out with the pliers, until it is all gone.
Like I said, tricky.
Now I need to fit all the outside surrounding pieces into place. I am using the original pattern. Which poses problems because the piece is not the same size as the original pattern. I probably should have waited, and traced out the outline and then done the other pieces. Ah, hindsight, gotta love it. But I didn’t, and the pieces are cutt but not ground, so I will make it work (thank you tim gunn).
More as I go along.
love affair with stained glass 