love affair with stained glass

Finished this beauty a couple weeks ago.

Honu

I am so so pleased with this guy. It’s the first piece that I really utilized the ring saw with. Learned a few things. The ring saw blade cuts a wider path than I initially thought, so I wasn’t able to just glue that pattern to the glass and cut out along the lines. Well I did that once, and ended up with too much space. The pattern pieces need to be cut out individually and spaced just under an 1/8 of an inch apart.

The ring saw blade is also much less forgiving on boo-boo’s. If you jig when you should have jagged, there is a noticeable divot. Plus it is very difficult to get a perfectly smooth edge. So the spacing and leaving a tiny margin of glass around the image that I can then quick grind off, seems to work best. I am using that method on the current project, with great success.

Honu with light

Super glad I made the color change from the green to the tan for the head and flippers. I was blindly in love with the green glass and initially wanted to do the flippers and the top of the head in it also. Then I looked up some photos a friend had taken of Hawaiin Sea Turtles in the ocean, and some random photos online. Though the representation of colors here is idealistic, I am please with them. I am still in love with the green glass though…

It is difficult tot tell in the photos, but I used a two-tone effect with the solder. The turtle is treated with black patina, and the water was left silver. It is pretty subtle, but I love the effect. I might use it on the next piece too. And I think I finally figured out the whole black patina thing. It got nice and dark on this guy. I re-read the directions, and they seemed to indicate that you were to continue applying and rubbing the patina in until it turned true black. So I tried that and it was much better. usually I end up with a mixture of dark brown/black and some rust. So the darker black is a huge improvement.

Honu was a commission piece for a friend, and is now hanging in her massage room. It looks beautiful and she loves it. I hope her clients enjoy him too.