Pop Is Just One 'O' Shy Of Poop

Watching Your Curves

When cutting curves it's very important that the curve be smooth and graceful.  Sharp points on a curve stand out like a sore thumb and they shouldn't happen since they're extremely easy to fix.  The biggest problem people have with grinding curves smooth is that they re-grind the entire piece rather than just the problem spots.  You can see in the picture below that the curved piece on top looks more like a stop sign rather than a curve.  When cutting out your pattern pieces do your best to follow the lines on the paper and remember that there are NO points on a curve.

When you cut the actual glass you will always end up with flanges that should be ground down.  Remember that after the piece is initially skimmed on the grinder you ONLY need to touch the 'sharp' points (the red arrows are pointing at these) to the grinding wheel to round off your curves.  Grinding the entire curve won't fix the high spots, it just makes everything smaller.  Remember to grind only the areas that are jagged.

Speaking of flowing, graceful curves, Becky S completed her free flowing American Flag and Eagle Window which is as patriotic as patriotic as can possibly be.  The work on this window is flawless and Becky's use of Blue Baroque glass for the final border literally gives the window a flowing effect.  Since each strip fit the length of each side of her window, Becky was able to line up her border pieces and keep the flow of the glass intact.  It's a subtle yet striking way to handle baroque borders (if possible). Perfection all around.

 

Then Cindy completed her latest pair of Suncatchers.  The Large Candy Cane is a very elegant design and her Christmas Bell turned out beautiful as well.  Next week we'll see how her Wedding Silhouettes are turning out.

 

Susan D completed two more pieces for her flower cornucopia and has even added a 3D effect to this now standard Butterfly design.  It turned out very nicely if I do say so myself.  Look to see this all come together and take shape shortly.  

 

 

Carol came in and got her background and border cut, ground and tacked together on her Peacock window.  Before she did that she changed one of the pieces in the head of the peacock to give it a more artistic flow.  Art isn't about matching real life, it's about making it more beautiful!

 

Barbara H's Crab window is almost complete already!   With everything tacked together she's even got the first border cut and ground.   She's taken the pieces home to wrap and next week we'll surely see the final border added to this window.

  

Charlie has his American Flag window all tacked together and it's ready for solder.  In fact, the front side has a lot of the soldering completed already.  Charlie has taken this home where he hopes to do even more work on it so there's a good chance that this will be completed when we next see it.

 

And Jan finished soldering almost all of the second side of her Basketball Window which means that this WILL be completed next week without a doubt.  At almost 4 feet tall, this window is much larger than anyone ever thinks when they see the picture of it here in our weekly posts. Alas, it also means that it will take longer to wash and color.

 

Jeanne is filling in the missing pieces of her Tiger De Lis Window and will soon be wrapping it.  This is another window that incorporates pieces of glass covered with lead and it's going to look spectacular.

 

Bonnie got her second Cardinal wrapped and tacked together so she then cut her background out of glue chip.  This window is a mirror image of her last one and will be ground and then wrapped and tacked into place when she comes back in next week.

  

Lara resumed grinding her Mermaid window and only has a few strands of hair to go before she can start wrapping all of these pieces.  She still needs to cut some bubbles into the background glass but that will easily be accomplished once she has all of this fitting together.  If you ask me, the wrapping on this will begin next week!

 

Linda F has all the grinding completed on her Stylized Calla Lily window and even has it wrapped and tacked.  There are two pieces that didn't fit very well so she's pulled them out and left empty spaces in their place which she will fill in now that it's tacked together.  This is by farthe best and easiest way to handle a situation like this.

 

And our other Linda, Linda L, has begun work on a large Industrial Fleur De Lis.  It's one of my favorite windows and there are plenty of soldered sections throughout it that trace around and throughout the Fleur De Lis.  Linda has all of this cut out with clear scrap glass that she will completely cover with foil and then solder over.   You'll see that happen during the weeks to come.

 

Sheri has made great strides with her Dragonfly Window and I have no doubt that she'll be finishing this soon.  This week she got her dragonfly and gems actually cut into her background pieces and then she tacked it all together and added the first thin yellow border of the pair of borders that will surround this.   Great work for sure!

  

Terry's got her Gladiolus Window all tacked together and it is ready for solder.  Her border glass is among one of my favorite glasses and her work is top notch.  I'm always impressed with Terry's ability to design her own patterns.  

 

Lynn got a little bit over zealous with her grinding and ended up with more water on her shirt that she did in the grinder but the pieces in her Tulip Window are fitting together nicely and things are moving along on it at a great deal of speed.  Lynn really has a knack for this!

 

Mary Grace is wrapping the pieces of her Welcome Window and will tack it together before she starts cutting the glass for her letters which spell the word 'Welcome' along the bottom of the window.  I still love the shading on her flowerpot/watering can.

 

Susan R has most of her Summer (not Spring as I sated last week!) sign cut out and ground and does it ever look great.  she's done a fantastic job with this and I can't wait to see it completed.   BTW, the design of this window is all hers-- it was assembled from different summer items that she liked and then combined.

 

Shelley started this Boat window that her boyfriend, Chad, has designed and Shelley got a nice chunk of it cut out before she left.  Shelley plans on finishing this project at home where she'll work on it with Chad as a group project.  She'll be working on a rose window next week but Shelley says that we'll get to see the boat again when it's completed.

 

Martha's almost ready for her background to be cut and although I said that we were going to recommend confetti glass for the background it turns out that I was wrong (how shocking!)  It's actually Grafitti glass that we sold Martha on.  It wouldn't matter what she picks for her background though because this is going to look great regardless.  Background glass choices are important but not as important as one might first think because the viewers focus will be on on the subject matter and not the background glass itself. 

This week also saw Brenda assembling her Beveled Transom window by wrapping all of her beveled pieces.  She's also gotten it tacked together.   Due to size restrictions she's omitted the top and bottom sections of this cluster because it just won't fit in the opening if we include them.  You can see where they would go because I've pointed them out with red arrows in the picture.  Once the beveled inner border surrounds this bevel you'll never know that it's been altered.  

 

Tasha has started her newest Mirror and it will be larger than the hand mirrors that she's made, but with smaller pieces!   Because of that I have no doubt that it's going to be stunning when it's completed.   Remember, you get out of a project what you put into it.  Tasha's pattern is all cut out and she'll begun cutting glass for this when she returns. 

 

Paula has decided to go a little smaller with her latest project by making a University of Louisiana Box.   But she isn't going to make just one of these-- she's making 7 of them.   And best of all, there is going to be a secret compartment in the bottom of each of these as well.  My mind is racing with ideas for this and I think we're going to come up with something very unique. Although I don't have a picture of the pattern I do have the images we traced out to make the pattern.

 

And there you have it.  Everything that happened in classes during the second week of August.  Come back next week and I'll show you a great way to store your foil as well as a ton of finished windows! 

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Window Shopping

Colored Back Foil Rules

We've been having issues again concerning what foil you should use on your windows if you aren't going to color them copper when you are finished.  I've found that seeing the explanation in writing helps a lot (especially while it was written out or board in the shop.)   Now that it's been erased and been replaced with a new tip I've decided to post the rules for using foil here on the blog.  

It sounds confusing when I rattle it off to students but when you see it in print it's far easier to see that only clear glass is affected and that copper matches copper,  black matches black, and silver matches silver.  Here's hoping that this helps, but if you are still unsure then just talk with me BEFORE you wrap your clear pieces!


With that out of the way I'm pleased to say that Sheri completed her Cochon The Pig Window and it turned out wonderfully.  She's going to write in the different cuts of meat from the pig on the glass with a paint pen but I believe the point of this window is fairly clear.  One of our students said that she thought this would go well in a butcher shop rather than a house and that's exactly the point here.

 

Susan R completed her Pineapple Welcome window and if you know where she lives you might already see it in its stand in her front yard.   She'll be working on a wonderful Spring scene when she returns next week complete with an umbrella and a sun.

 

Tasha's Circular Fleur De Lis Window is completed and when our other students saw the size of the pattern they were all shocked at just how small it is.  This was an exercise in cutting small pieces as exactly as possible and Tashia did wonderfully with it.

Linda L finished her Initial B Window and the colors really make this stand out nicely. She did beautiful work throughout this and is getting ready to tackle a large Fleur De Lis when she comes back in.

 

Jeannette completed her striking yet simple beveled window that she started just last week.  There's no pattern to follow when you make a window like this, she just traced around the bevel with some color and then cut the bevel and border into a rectangle of background glass.  She finished it off with the same color that she traced the bevel in and this is what she walked out the door with.  Perfection.

 

Carol's large Fleur De Lis Window came in needing only two hooks to finish it off.  They were added in less than five minutes and the window looks perfect to me.    Another great job by Carol.

Becky S's Eagle and American Flag Window has its double border attached and she hopes to find the time to solder the back side while she's at home during the week.  I love the blue baroque glass that she used for her border.  Sadly, we won't be seeing much more of this glass now that Spectrum has closed down.

 

Bonnie's Female Cardinal Window is moving along nicely as she has most of it ground at this point. She still has some background to cut but there's not a lot of that in this window so cutting those few remaining pieces shouldn't slow Bonnie down much at all.  And let's not forget that she already has her round border cut! 

 

Barbara H learned how to trace out a central figure onto a single piece of glass and then cut everything from that one piece.  This method ensures that you spend as little time at the grinder as possible and that the grain of the glass flows perfectly throughout the window.  This is not only cut out but ground as well! 

  

Carol started this large Peacock Suncatcher while she was in class and she's making good progress on it already.  This has always been one of my favorite designs and Carol's rendition of it doesn't change my mind about it one bit.

 

Myrt's Mermaid is taking shape and her leaves and background will soon be cut out now that the majority of the mermaid itself has been ground.   There's only one or two pieces of hair left to grind on this so Myrt will be moving along to her other colors when she comes back in.

  

Charlie's American Flag Window now has its background all cut out and ground and he's picked such a perfect border color that I even recommended it to someone else the next day!  Charlie will begin soldering this using the 'every other line approach' perhaps as early as next week.

 

Terry has the bulk of her work on this oval Flower Window completed so the end is certainly near on this piece.  Terry excels in flowers and this Gladiolus Window was another of her own creations.   Way to go Terry!

 

Cindy worked on her Christmas Bell Suncatcher as well as a large Candy Cane.  She's been hammering out the suncatchers and I know she's got a lot more coming out over the next few weeks.  To me though, her Silhouettes of a wedding couple is her standout project this week.  I honestly  didn't think it was going to work well at all and I was completely wrong about it because this looks great! 

 

Jan's Basketball Window has its front side completely soldered which means that she'll flip this over and work on the back side when she returns.  Look to see this completed not next week but during the following week because even though she'll complete the window when she returns she'll still need to wash, color and wax it.  On a window this size that could take a while.

 

Jeanne is now working on cutting out her clear scrap glass sections which will be covered with foil and then with lead.   This is going to be one very striking window and it's already close to being completed.  As an added bonus Jeanne has made sure that you can see the correct eyes in their rightful places this week.

 

Here's Sheri's next project, a Dragonfly Window.  She's got the dragonfly cut into the background glass and you can see the filigree that she is using for the windows very clearly in this picture.  You can also see a test run for the words that she'll be printing on her completed Pig Window.

 

 

Mary Grace has almost all of the picture section of her Welcome Window ground now and it's looking like a winner to me.  It won't be long before this is tacked together and she begins cutting out her letter section.

 

Our second Mermaid belongs to Lara and she's made great progress on this.  With everything but the small bubbles cut out she's begun grinding all of her pieces.   Next week she'll tackle the hair and then the worst part will be behind her. 

 

 Jeannette filled in the broken pice of her Heron Window and will surely be adding a border to it when she comes back in.  She moved quickly and efficiently on this project and I can already say that she did a great job with it.

 

Linda F had actually left her window here in the shop last week so I could have taken a picture of it after all.  I'm just so used to her taking her window home with her each week that I never thought to look under the table for it when I noticed I didn't have a picture.  That said, she's got the grinding on this pretty much in the bag now and will most likely begin wrapping this soon.

 

 Our second Eagle and American Flag Window belongs to Roxanne and she's got this all wrapped and ready to be tacked together.  I've recommended using the same color for her border that Charlie used in his and so far she agrees that it's a good choice.  We'll see what happens with the border when she returns to us next week.

  

Betty's Angel Window has it's border attached and she's ready to tackle the soldering on this project.  When it comes back in next week we'll get a brass channel around the outer edge of the window and then add some hooks.

Rowena is working on a large Cross Window and has the center portion of the window tacked together.  She's also picked a border and has that all cut out so we'll see what it looks like with a border attached to it real soon now. 

 

 

Martha is still wrapping her Seafood window but did she ever get a lot accomplished this week.  It won't be long before she tacks this together and starts cutting the (confetti glass) background that we're going to talk her into using.  Sometimes the best choices are the ones made for you!

And lastly we look at three more Snowmen Suncatchers that were made by Betty this week.  She certainly appears to be working in full Christmas mode!  She even painted all of their faces herself making these very impressive indeed.

 

And there you have it.   Everything that happened in all of our classes last week has officially been documented and saved here on the internet for posterity (unless Goggle shuts down our Blog!)

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks