Just For A Little Tail

We're going to start things off with not a tip but with a very stern recommendation.  Most (if not all) rolls of foil that you purchase has the starting end attached to the rest of the foil with a plastic backed tape.  If you foil glass with this section of the foil the solder will NOT adhere.  So be sure to always discard the first round of foil from a new roll.  Failure to do this simple task will cause you to have many problems when you hit this nasty spot with your solder.

 
And now I'll toss in a tip since we're already talking about foil. I always mark the inner plastic core of my foil with all of its pertinent information along with my name. In the photo below you can see that this roll is 3/16th, black backed foil which belongs to the shop. Marking all of your foil ensures that you'll always wrap glass with the correct size, and keeping your name on the roll will make sure it returns back to you if someone else accidentally picks it up or if you accidentally leave it in the shop after class is over!

Now onto our finished projects. Susan has completed her LSU Tiger Window and all her hard work has paid off. It's hard to appreciate the background glass in this picture unless you see it in person-- the forest-like effect is truly beautiful. Susan liked making this so much that she's making two more! Wait until you see how far along she is on her second one already.

 

Shelley's Aquatic Window was washed and colored this week and she's already got it hanging in a window at home (according to her Facebook post). Shelley has come a long way in class and her cutting and grinding skills really show in this window. It's over three feet tall so the amount of detail in it just can't be seen in this little 4 inch tall picture. A nice job all around.

 

Here's the last of Mary Grace's Christmas Trees. This is Tree number three for her and she says she's done with them now. So what's up next for Mary Grace? It will be Pistol Grip cutter lessons so she can make an abstract window with all straight cuts. More on that in two more posts.

 

Janet has another Sunflower under her belt and has no problem put these together by herself now. She was concerned about the inner circle of lead but there was nothing to worry about at all. Perfection!

 

And Charlie has another Hand Mirror completed, this one even better than his last one. These are always challenging when you make the first one but they get easier as you go along. And as you can see, the proof is in the pudding. (What the heck does that mean, anyway?)

Now we'll move on to the projects which are under construction. Carol's got the center of her large Beveled Window started and she decided that she'd border the bevel in a heavily textured fibroid glass. We started by cutting a number of 3/4 of an inch wide strips and then bordered the beveled cluster all the way around until Carol ended up with what you see below. It's a technique that I use often to expand on bevels and it gives you a GREAT way to tie in border color/texture.

 

Rowena has all of the panels cut out for her five paneled window and four of them have all been soldered on the front side. I love the top long panel and feel that it would make a beautiful window all on its own. Rowena says she'll get us a picture of all of these panels when they're installed. I can't wait for that.

 

Mary Grace started cutting out this angel while she was at home but worried about the direction of the grain one one of the pieces in the bottom section of the dress. I saw nothing wrong with it at all because the piece itself is set apart from the rest of the dress so making the grain run in a different direction seems to be the fitting thing to do in this case. Regardless, this is looking great.

 

Here's a look at Paula's newest project. It will be a stand alone Dragonfly Suncatcher and as you can see Paula has wasted no time working on this with all it's tiny pieces. There are only the wings left to ground on this and then Paula will begin soldering it. And kudos to Paula for getting those tiny round eyes to be so perfectly circular AND perfectly matched in size! Little things mean a lot.

 

Check out Linda L's three Mardi Gras Masks! These will each become a separate panels to drop into the metal frames that Linda had purchased. In our next post these will gain frames and then Linda will add the background pieces (which is reversed from the way we normally do it and we'll explain why when we come back in our next post.)

 

Shelley was somewhat in between with her projects since she forgot to bring in the glass for the window that she's working on at home. Rather than wasting a class she started to work on this double Butterfly window which she'll put on hold next week so she can return to work on her Duck Window (which is at home this week). But look how far she got on this new window. Impressive.

  

Here's a look at the Fleur De Lis Window that Vickie started just two weeks ago. There are only a few pieces of the border needing to be wrapped before this can be tacked and then soldered. I'm thoroughly impressed at how quickly Vickie has moved on each of the projects she's made so far.

 

Susan resumed work on this Santa Face Window that she had found on the internet. The original picture was somewhat askew but we've fixed it so that the background glass is now perfectly square and will make a perfect window when the border is added next week. It's hard to see the clear textured background glass but if you look closely you'll see that it IS there.

 

Jeannette has all of her Cross, Grapes, Wine and Bread Window tacked together. Not only that but she has the front side completely soldered as well as the second side. That means that this window just needs some hooks and a bath to finish it off. And we'll see this completed in our next post.

 

Susan's not wasting any time at all and proving my point that the second time around goes quicker. Look at how fast her second Tiger Window is moving along. Amazing! The colors are different in this one and there have been little tweaks here and there throughout the pattern, and the background glass will be the most striking difference between this window and the Tiger that Susan completed in the beginning of this update.

  

Now you may have noticed that we're missing a few people in this post and there's a good reason for that. Our Wednesday night class opted to skip class this week so we could celebrate a combination Thanksgiving/Christmas diner at the Yellow Bowl Restaurant. Betty, Bonnie, Linda, Natalie, Russ and myself all ate wonderful meals and had a grand old time just laughing it up while enjoying some GREAT food. Our only regret is that Jeanne wasn't able to join us, but she was in Disney World so she was having fun as well.

And that about wraps things up for the third week in November. We're catching up, slowly but surely and I plan on getting at least one other post out before the weekend. So check your email for the notice for our next update.




Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks