soldering iron saga, continued

•July 11, 2012 • 1 Comment

still having trouble with the soldering iron. I have gone back and forth with the manufactureer of my iron, Hakko, and I think i have gotten the problem ironed out (pun intended), lol.

I never took chemistry in HS so I might be a bit fuzzy on the details, but… it seems to be oxidation. And there is a high probability that my flux is crap. the flux is crazy old, so not shocking that it might be contaminated or no longer effective. I have no idea if flux has a shelf life. All the articles I have read suggest that you “try several and find which one works best for you”. I LOVE this piece of advice because it seems to be helpful when in fact, it says absolutely nothing!

apparently Lead-free solder is all the rage. All PC and stuff. Whatever. I use the leaded stuff. Lead- free seems to be a pain in the butt. I might have a completely differrent attitude when I am 75 and I cannot remember my name form all the lead I ihaled or was absorbed through my skin… but that is 30 yrs from now and I’ll deal with it then. or not, as the case may be. I use a respirator rated for lead, and I use gloves when I handle the lead.

OK, just wanted to post that, and a cool link I found. Didn’t read all of it, but will later. Gotta get in the shower and go to work, be a responsible adult…

and thanks, Daniel, for linking to my blog. I’ll link to yours int he next post. That way we can pat each other on the back =)

Posted in Uncategorized

done. ok, not quite.

•July 10, 2012 • 7 Comments

I need a new word. 85% done. soldered. there, that works. it is the most accurate.

oooh, big! it cracks me up that the vertical pics are so much bigger than the horizontals. this is natural light, so coloring isn’t as even. I just wanted to get something up cuz I get excited that it is almost done!!!

super happy with the coral:

 

this glass is over 40 years old. totally cool to use it. it was a little difficult to cut,  but it ground beautifully, and the iridescence is variegated and really gorgeous.

also super happy with the dolphins. the grey/brown glass is also over 40 years old… found in an attic, in a cardboard suitcase. pretty neato.

huh. now that i look at it, it doesn’t look grey at all. it looks off white. still, its neato glass.

still having problems with my solder iron. i barely got this done. and it took 3.5  hours, when it should have taken 2… the iron cools off and then super heats so the flux boils out and pops all over the place. I have all these tiny burns on my arms and hands from the hot solder drops. they are stinging. I just had the iron serviced and a new tip put in. Hakko said it was fine, but it’s not. I’m trying not to be irritated, but…

its not the solder. I am currently using an off brand made here in USA (eagle brand, out of texas), but I had a spool of mastercraft and a spool of canfield, and the iron fluctuated with both of those. plus, if i set the temp regulator for the correct temp, nothing happens. it doesn’t get hot at all. i have to turn it way up before it will even melt the solder and then it is just too damn hot. the only other thing i can try is new flux. the flux i am using is super old and maybe it is contaminated or something. so i’ll go pick up some new flux and try that out. but dang, it is irritating. i finally got to a point where I was happy with my solder lines and now i can’t get it to work.

Posted in Commissions, Cool glass, Custom, Turtle
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

deadline looming

•July 9, 2012 • 2 Comments

one week. that is all the time I have left to finish Peace & Quiet, my latest underwater panel. Since I have been procrastinating like mad, I now have a scramble to finish. I spent pretty much all of yesterday foiling. I had gotten the coral and some of the sand foiled before yesterday, but the bulk of it needed to be done. So that is all I did yesterday. Foil. My elbow  was screaming when I woke up this AM at 6…

I’ll solder today. Supposed to be 104 today, so why not add to the heat, lol? If I get it totally soldered today, I can patina tuesday night. Wednesday is Farmer’s Market, so no working on glass (it’s supposed to be 108 on weds… joy. the henna is going to be melting all over the place.) that leaves thursday and Friday for polishing. Can’t work on it Saturday, cuz I am picking up the sod that day and will probably lay it that night so I can water it and it can rest before the heat of the day. And pick up is Sunday.

That will be a change… I don’t know that I have ever had anyone come to my house to pick up their glass. I think I have delivered every piece. huh. Well, it will be super nice to have them come here.

had a little green guest the other day. a preying mantis. it was all over my budding dahlia but I left it alone. I’m pretty sure they only eat bugs, not flowers…

Several minutes after taking a few photos, I noticed Kia was very active, and scooting around the marguerite bush. I think she found the mantis, messed with it, and it got away and took refuge in the bush. I found it in the middle. the photo is a bit dark, it was coming on twilight and the flash obliterated him in the photo. he was very irritated with me and the flash.

they are so kung-fu bad-ass, don’t you think? i wonder if mantis season is beginning? I’ll have to check my walls at work. I usually end up with several living on my stucco.

OK. into the shower I go, then back to work on glass.

 

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

ok really pissing me off now

•July 1, 2012 • 2 Comments

what the hell? i can’t type anymore after I post a photo? that is fucked up. might be time to change themes. cuz i was going to post a bunch of photos…

spent almost all of last weekend grinding. i procrastinated and now i have 2 weeks to finish sealife. my own fault. I had tons of time and i farted around. now i have a crunch. and then i am done. I am not taking any more commish’s this year. not even for xmas. (that will probably turn out to be a lie…) so i can work on my stuff. finish the lampshades, get buddha on paper and started (before i forget what I want to do) and get the peacock feather idea on paper. i’m doing an evening farmer’s market for work too, doing henna designs, and have had my two windsocks hanging each week. they have generated some interest. if i did some little things, butterflies, lotus, smaller fish, i could probably sell them as well. but that adds another layer of obligation to the mix. it would be all well and good if i could just do it full time, lol.

Posted in Uncategorized

back underwater

•July 1, 2012 • 1 Comment

my wordpress theme is being squirrelly again, and won’t let me past the photos i posted, of the lampshades.

started on the lampshades, and then realized i had to finish the coven repair and get started on the commission sealife (which i still don’t have a title for). coven repair is done, glass-wise, and I will  be making the frame this weekend. excellent resource for oak framing for glass pieces here. they have three widths, and two rabbet widths, one for zinc and one for came. prices were very very reasonable and the moulding is evenly colored and straight. and I like that the finish is simple, just a straight  box shape, no flourish or bevelled edge.

Posted in Uncategorized

decision made

•July 1, 2012 • Leave a Comment

thank you brian for the shot int he fanny. I have been wanting to post on here for weeks now, but life has been busy busy busy.

lampshade design is as follows:


Posted in Uncategorized

lampshade, again

•May 6, 2012 • 3 Comments


I do not seem to be able to make a decision to save my life, lol.  have gone back and forth withe the design for the reading light shades for my bedroom. I really liked the shade i saw at lowe’s last week and I recreated it, intending to use it. but once i got it drawn up, the pieces wer too  large, and it wasn’t going to be an actual circle, and I lost my enthusiasm for it.

So I circled back to a design I love, and which is 100% original to me. The wave design from Hawaiian Fling.

The whale is a pattern from a book called Nature’s Wonders by Lisa Vogt. Everything else is me. I love the wave design, the curves, the sinuousness of it. The colors. I tried to use it in another commision I am doing, but it just didn’t work. Then I thought, hey, how about my lampshades? So here they are…

Posted in Custom, Inspiration, Patterns
Tags: , , , , ,

Patterns are hard

•April 30, 2012 • Leave a Comment

I love making patterns, but wow, they are hard. Today I spent a few hours working with the sea life pattern. This is what I ended up with:

Version 2

I hadn’t actually looked at what I had posted yesterday until I posted this photo. I am happy to see that I did actually change some things. Still need to tweak a few things, put in the separation lines… all in all though, I think this is it. I took elements from several different pattern books (Tropical Waters by Leslie Gibbs [a CKP publication] and Marine Animals Stained Glass Pattern Book by Carolyn Relei. the turtle is from someone else… i can’t remember who… I went through almost every book I own, looking for inspiration) and mixed them up, changed a line here or there. I’m not really happy with the dolphin tails, I might have to fiddle with them some more.

I was hoping to use some of the wave elements from my humpback whale piece (which is all original except for the whale itself) but it didn’t work out.

Anyway, the point of this post is that making pattern is fricking hard! It takes hours, literally. There is drawing and erasing, and more drawing and erasing… repositioning stuff, moving it around, adding, discarding. Every element in the pattern was drawn and erased at least once. those two fish i drew, erased and re-drew 4 times. 4!! The starfish was changed three times. I repositioned the coral once, the seahorse 4 times… and lets not even get started on the turtle. I moved that sucker all over the place. The dolphins could really only go one place, so that was relatively easy.  (oooh, a skunk is going by outside. hello, Stinky, lol).

When its done, though… very rewarding. Hopefully, K still wants the window, lol.

I drew out he lampshade pattern. That one was easy. It’s actually much larger than I had anticipated. To get good positioning on the light, the shade needs to be 10″ long… that will end up being a lot of glass. But it will look super cool, and I think it is something I will be able to knock out in a couple of days. Need to hit up Makin Glass for some soft spool lead for  the top and bottom edge, and for the wood framing for the coven repair.

I took a long nap today, so I am wide awake. It’s midnight, or almost. I think I’ll go grocery shopping.

Posted in Commissions, Custom, For Sale, Patterns
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting going again

•April 29, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Been working the glass, finally. I have the repair of the coven piece mostly done. Another lesson, lol. Nothing is ever as easy as I think hope it will be. It wasn’t as simple as just reprinting the pattern and drawing a frame around it and figuring out where the breaks would be. There is a thing i am calling spread which  needs to be taken into consideration. No matter how careful or perfect your piece is, is will grow when you solder it. It just does. It becomes slightly bigger. So if you use the same pattern, you will have some gaps to deal with. That was an unfortunate thing to realize. but, i made it work.

I have a tentative commission for another underwater piece. I will be honest here…I’m totally burned out on the underwater scenes. I was having a ton of trouble getting in the mood to draw this one. I have been working up to it, psyching myself out for it, all week. Got most of the ground work done, the finding of elements, scanning, re-sizing, printing… then taping it all up on the window to see how it plays out. I am pretty pleased with it. i don’t have all of it done, but will before I go to bed tonight. Or at least 90% of it.

Image

I needed to take a break for bit so I am out back, sitting on my lounge chair, typing, listening to the birds eat birdseed. They are very loud. Woodpecker is in a tree nearby. The sun is setting, and the sky is shot thorugh with pink and peach. its quite lovely. Last week i was putting plants in and shifted the position of my lounge chair, so it faced the west. I sat in it later, to enjoy a cup of coffee and a book, and noticed the gorgeous sun set. i felt like a dolt, lol, for not realizing the potential before. But luck to have discovered it now.

I was in Lowe’s last weekend and happened on some interesting lampshades. I think I am going to try these for my bedroom. Simple, quick, easy. Or so I think, right?

Image

It is even already in the colors of my bedroom, lol. 

Feeling the itch to get back to the drawing, so going to heed it. More soon.

Posted in Uncategorized

how did you find me?

•April 6, 2012 • 5 Comments

i have another blog, and it has been located by other bloggers, and now i have this neat little community of bloggers that i interact with. and it gave me th idea, perhaps not shockingly, to search out other glass bloggers and maybe create a community that way too.

first of all, i had a heck of a time finding a search button on wordpress… crazy. you would think that it would be very very prominent. when i finally found one, and did the search, it comes up with 93, 874 posts contain the words “stained glass”. I go through them and hit the next button, and a new page comes up and it says “zero” results.

wth? (trying to cut down on my swearing. did you notice the h, instead of the f? lol)

I was less than impressed with the 10 blogs that were listed. none were more recent than 2010. half did not have photos. very uninteresting posts. i will have to take that into consideration as I post. this might be an uninteresting post.

I then did a search for stained glass art and had a little bit better luck.

my question is how did you find this blog, dear readers?

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »