When soldering suncatchers a common problem is seamlessly joining the lead lines to the edge of the piece. The general cause of the problem comes from moving the tip of the soldering iron too far to the edge thus dragging the lead over and off off the piece. Just remember that the heat from your iron radiates outwards from the tip. You can (and should) actually stop moving your iron when you get to about a quarter of an inch from the edge of your project. Once the iron stops moving you can easily watch the solder continue to flow outwards to the edge of the glass all by itself. Once the lead reaches the edge gently lift your iron off of the glass and you'll have a perfect join every time. Remember, practice makes perfect.
Monday, January 25, 2021
Effective Scoring
Monday, January 18, 2021
Here Comes A Cheeseball
Our tip this week is about pattern placement on your glass. A common mistake is to arrange your pattern pieces as you see below. Everything looks great and there's a good quarter of an inch (which we always want) between each piece but there's one big error. Do you see it?
Our biggest piece with the inside curve (shaded in red below) should first be cut with a straight line beginning at the starting point of the curve to the ending point of the curve (thus following the red dotted line). We call this 'Cutting Point To Point' and it's essential to begin inside curves with this straight cut first. As you can see this results in two other pieces being split in half due to bad pattern placement. Technically you could curve your cut around the two problem pieces but that makes what could be a very simple cut into a more difficult cut with a good chance of you breaking one (or more) pieces.
The solution is simple. When tracing out your pattern onto your glass remember not to cross that point to point line with other pattern pieces as we did in the figure below. Many people ask if it's okay to place an entire piece to the left of the line as the square is in the image above but this isn't a good idea because you will most likely need to take the curve out in multiple cuts ending with your eventually cutting through any pieces you've places to the left of the Point To Point line.
That said, to avoid having to imagine the Point To Point line, simply position that inner curve along the edge of the glass so the Point To Point cut has already been made by the edge of the sheet of glass. That way you don't have to worry about the other pieces placement. Keep in mind though that the grain of the glass may not allow you to do this at other times so always keep in mind that imaginary Point To Point cut and don't allow your other pattern pieces to cross it.
Our last completed project is the first of two leaded Christmas Ornaments that Susan D began working on last week. This one is, shall we say, 'out the door' and the second one is only one foot behind this one. We'll see her second ornament next week and Susan says she has a few more of these lined up after that so we'll be seeing more of these.
Lisa is working on a Coast Guard Window for her son. This will be assembled in three separate sections (the top USCG rectangle, the middle square Anchor section, and then the bottom 2021 section). Once each section is tacked together they will be joined together to form one large window which will then get a border around it. She already has her letters and numbers cut out but right now she's concentrating on the center anchor section.
Mary's Cross and Dove Window is so very close to being completely cut out now. With the thin outer red border tacked into place and the accent circles and diamonds in position Mary is now cutting the black center background pieces and grinding them to fit. You can see where she started at the 3 o'clock position. Next week I think we'll see most of those black pieces in place.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Don't Let Paul Give You Any Craft
What's the most important part of a suncatcher? The outside edge. Why? Because it defines the shape of the object. Edge pieces should ALWAYS line up and form a perfect line be it straight or curved. Look at the examples below. The heart on the left lines up with smooth curves and edges that align correctly. The heart on the right is off in almost every possible way and it shows in extremely obvious ways. Which do you prefer? The answer tells what you should strive for in all of your work.
Linda L finished her LSU Lamp and it is incredible. She did such a wonderful job from start to finish on this. Maybe, if we're lucky, Linda will be able to snap a picture of this on the base that she had made especially for it so we can see it in all of its splendor!
Cheryl began working on a Lighthouse Window to start the new year. After tracing out and coloring the pattern to her liking she cut apart the paper pattern and then traced the sky onto a beautiful blue/white glass which she now has cut out and resting in its place on the pattern.
Check it out! This is the first of many Honeycomb Windows that MiMi has been working on for the past 2 months. She said that wrapping all of those hexagons wasn't difficult at all and that's a good thing since she has around 1,500 of them left to wrap! This window is tacked together and ready for solder so we'll surely see it completed when MiMi returns.
Paul