Pattern material and matching glass

Any time you go with patterned glass you are going to have waste. The usual reason for matching the design to the pattern is for a more pleasing result. It is especially exciting when you have to make that tricky cut on a key piece where a missed break will totally mess up the design. If you want a matched pattern, then you have to live with the waste. On the other hand carefully using patterns so they work but are not matched is another skill.

Not to discourage your method or approach, but you can take 10 times longer to cut a piece and end up being maybe 1% more accurate, and no one will ever be able to tell the difference when it's folded and soldered together anyway. I can cut 10 pieces on a light table before you can cut one with your mylar templates. Maybe yours will be a bit better, but I doubt it. Your method is fine if time is no matter. As for glass matching, it's really up to you depending on what the finished design will look like. If they are heavily patterned border strips, it won't matter as much as big background pieces will.

A light table approach seemed to be interesting, but I heard some discouraging things initially and the first book on stained glass I read recommended against it. I guess I have a few questions to someone who uses it successfully:

Do you find parallax to be a problem?

How do you see through opaque glass or heavily stained glass?

I assume that the pattern is taped or fastened somehow to the light table. How do you hold the glass fixed to the pattern while you cut a specific piece so it does not move and spoil the cut?

After a piece is cut, if the glass is fastened to the pattern somehow, how do you release it to position the glass to cut the next pattern piece and manuver the pattern piece to a good cutting position?

First of all don't believe everything you read in a book. The best thing to do is take a class at your local SG shop. I've been doing this and teaching it for well over 20 years, so have a good chance at being right. I'll answer all your questions with this statement that will change your life forever. "Stained glass cutting is not intended to be perfectly accurate". There, I've said it. Did your parents ever tell you that you didn't need to get 100 on every test to be OK? Varying thickness of solder line is fine. No one that will ever look at your piece will ever say... "wow look at how accurately he cut those pieces". Let the glass do the work. Get some scrap and dive into it, and make some mistakes. Bleed a little bit too!

We are planning on taking a class in May, but I had to do a housewarming gift for my son. We are going to be at his place in California mid-May and I wanted him to get this while we were out there. It is a clock using the McNeil octagon style case that I made and I wanted to do something different in woodworking for this project. I am now done cutting out the pieces and ready to foil them up. They cut very easily and the mylar patterns helped a lot. I was surprised how much I had to remove with the grinder even though they were nearly "right on" relative to the mylar patterns after cutting. I know that 3 bladed scissors are used for came stained glass work, but it looks like they would have been useful here also. I am trying to determine how much clearance is needed between the glass pieces when you use foil. The foil is only about 1 or 2 mils thick, but I have a feeling that is not the whole story. Here are some photos of where I am. Give me any suggestions you can so I am able to finish this with as little serious problems as possible.

shows the basic layout

You need to have a little space between the foiled pieces. The solder needs to melt down into the spaces to give the panel more strength. When you have foiled all the pieces they should be able to move a "little" bit but you don't want big gaps. Before you start soldering remeasure and make sure it will still fit the frame as s.g. tends to grow. You can always take the foil off and grind a little off the bottom and refoil. Make sure your glass and hands are free of grease and dirt before you foil. Also, are you going to use lead or thin zinc around the outside edge? Don't forget to allow room for the lead. Good Luck,

Connie Ryman Cryman Studio

Got you on the suggestions. What do you mean lead or thin zinc around the outside edge? I did not think I would add anything other than the foil that is on the outer piece. It is going to be RTV'd into the case and I don't think I have to add any extra support other than the frame of the clock itself as support.

Here is what I do. I place my pattern on a flat piece of styrofoam, then lay the pieces on that and use straight pins to pin them all out and hold them in place. The thickness of the pins provides the space for the thickness of 2 layers of foil. As I foil each piece, I remove the pins as I go, leaving the pins around the outside edge. At the end of foiling I have all the foiled pieces arranged with pins around the perimeter. I solder right on that, removing the perimeter pins only when the rest of it is stuck together. Hope this helps, Tomes

I guess you don't absolutely have to add lead or zinc since it is not free hanging. I just prefer the extra strength. On my sun catchers I usually imbed a thin copper wire in the solder around the perimeter of the pieces. What is RTV ?

RTV is room temperature vulcanizing rubbery adhesive that can be used for molds or glues. GE RTV is the best known on clean surfaces it is a pretty good glue that fills spaces and can be cut free with a thin blade or wire. For something the size of a clock face, there should be no problem with just soldered foil around the outside, I have a piece in which a thin slice of nautilus shell was matched to a swirl in white/clear glass and foiled around the edge with only a copper wire soldered in at the top and it has been hanging beside my desk for about

20 years. Several of my early pieced suncatchers done the same way hang in the bedroom window.

Thanks again for all the feedback. My next challenge is how to bring out or highlight the stained glass. The back of the clock is just going to be a hardboard panel. I am expect to put a mirror behind the lower area to create a brighter area in the glass. I saw a clock that had a mirror back of part to the glass and not another area. It created a change in tone (brightness) of the stained glass that created an interesting effect and looked like different stained glass was being used in the two areas. Any suggestions about what to use behind the stained glass would be appreciated.

Perhaps some manner of LED lights. I am thinking that they would come quite small and fit in there nicely. Tomes