vrijdag 30 oktober 2009

The window is placed in the door.


This is the end result.
And it looks great. I'm ever so pleased with it.
Great work by the carpenter to make the window fit perfectly in the door.

Next the door has to be painted so that will look different. Check this blog in a while and I hope you will find new photo's of the completely finished door!

















woensdag 14 oktober 2009

This is it.

Finally, the pasting is done and I have cleaned it up.
It is made to be placed in the bathroom door but here it looks good for the photo.



maandag 12 oktober 2009

Applying the paste

Like I said, now its time for the fun bit. The application of the paste: this paste will, once it has dried, hold the glass firmly in the lead strips and is necessary because the window will be placed in a door so the window has to be strong.

It is important you rub the paste between the glass and the lead strips well with a brush.
After you have done that (one side at the time) you press the sides of the lead strips down on to the glass.
The excess paste will come out and you can remove that later.
When all sides are pressed down you can clean the window with some cloth.
Then turn the window. You will see that in some places the paste has been pressed through to the other side.
Now repeat the brushing in of the paste and pressing the lead strips.
Clean this side and check the other side and it's finished. The paste has to harden and then this part is finished.

Next and last thing to do before we place the window in the door, is apply a chemical called 'patina' which makes the lead strips very dark, almost black.

Here are some photo's of the application of  the paste.










A view through the window

Ok, the soldering is done. Now before the fun bit which is applying of the paste, here are a few photo's of how the window looks now.











The soldering

Monique has seen the window and has given me a few usefull tips. On the work yet to be done on this window but also on design of the other window.
It was scary at first to start soldering but gradually you get the feel of the melting of the tin and apart from a few minor accidents it went well I think.
Here are some pictures.
The face protection is against the fumes that come from the hot tin mixed with soldering fat :-)








zaterdag 3 oktober 2009

A new project.

Waiting for Monique to give her opinion on the bathroom window, I am going to make a start on the 2 windows that are supposed to go in the door to the living room.
The design is somewhat the same as the finished window but the size is different and so the design will look different.
I have learned much from making the bathroom window and will try to use that knowledge and not make the same mistakes again.
I promise :-)

Here is a photo of the drawing before I had started cutting the pieces out.

maandag 28 september 2009

Finished assembling.

Very pleased with this result. It was quite a challenge to trim the topside, especially when I trimmed a little bit too much of one of the pieces.
But I think it looks good and I have learned so much from making this.



Next thing I want to do is show the window to Monique who taught me this art and it would be great if she would give me some tips before I start soldering.
Not finished yet!

zondag 27 september 2009

Almost finished.




Almost finished!
I have set all the pieces of glass in the lead and it looks realy good. I'm very pleased with the result.
Just the topside has to be trimmed. That's for this evening. Not now because the weather is to nice to stay indoors.
The design was supposed to be 50 cm ..... and in the end it's 50,8 cm.
That is really something to think about working on other projects.
I started working on this window at the bottom right hand corner. Here is a photo of the bottom left hand corner:




maandag 21 september 2009

The bottom trimmed.



I'm so glad we didn't let the carpenter make that hole in the door yet !
Because of the 3 pieces of glass on the left being to small/short someting had to be done and I chose to trim the bottom pieces so the whole design is now about 4 mm shorter in height. The other option: cutting a whole new piece was not a good option because it would cost another piece of glass which I will need for the other windows in the door to the livingroom.
The colours in this photo I have tried to make them look as much as they will look when there is a light behind it.
It would be great to have a workbench with backlights.



zaterdag 19 september 2009

Back in business.




The lead arrived yesterday and I couldn't wait to start working on the window again.
The part above the flower proved to be somewhat difficult because of the many curves and joints but in the end it worked out well.
Another problem is that some of the pieces that are left do not fit now. Maybe because gradually the glass and lead together shift the design a bit and because I have cut all the pieces beforehand they match the design but don't fit quit as good as I would like them to.
I have been trying to get the three yellow pieces on the left to fit, and they do, but.... the height is not right.
Now I can do 2 things: 1 is cut a new piece - one of the three - and make it so that they fit the design from top to bottom.
Or: let it be and make the top and bottom border straight when all the pieces are set in the lead.
Have to let this simmer for a bit.
Fresh outlook on it tomorrow maybe. I hope so.

dinsdag 15 september 2009

Out of lead.

That is not so smart of me.
There I was thinking I could work on the window with the lead profiles I have left and finish it this week: these profiles are of the wrong size!
So, first order some and I'll be back in a few days to continue.
Lesson learned: always check your stock....

zaterdag 12 september 2009

The Flower.



Good progress today. The flower looks pretty and it was not half as difficult as I expected it to be. The right side where I started to work, was much more difficult.
Perhaps because I had to get used to working with the glass.
Half way there and will try to finish this week.

dinsdag 8 september 2009

Up to date.

The green leaves are each in one strip completely.
Looks good if I say so myself !
You can see the steel lead curve.
This is how far I got with setting the glass in the lead in a week and I'm pleased about it.

Have I said it is to be placed in a door?
Very clever of us :-) to make the window first and then ask a carpenter to make the space in the door big enough for the window to be placed in.
Can't go wrong there...


Using the lead.

Started to set the glass in the lead.
This is proving to be difficult because of the curves and difficult corners.
Also chosing where the welding joints will be is important mostly to make it look good.
In this picture the green leaves are set in pieces of lead.
In the next post you can see I have changed that and it looks much better.

How does this look then?

This is better I think.
It will look even better with the glass in the lead of course.
With designing you always have to make sure you can place pieces of steel lead strips from one side to another to strengthen the window.
Because you can not bend this like normal leadstrips I had to make sure it was straight or slightly curved.
Here the steel lead will be the two verical curves left and right of the flower.
Also the strips surrounding the window will be of steel lead.

Is this the one?


This is the window how it was supposed to look. All the pieces cut out (rough but fitted) and trying to get used to it.
But somehow it looked a bit plane, dull even.
So I changed some parts and the results you can see in my next post.


zaterdag 5 september 2009

My work space.

Here is a view on my workspace.
It's a spare room upstairs, not big, big enough for the time being, but there are also other things in there which are in the way.
Unfortunately we are among those people who have difficulties throwing things out.

Do you notice the very important ingredient for well being while working on ... well ... almost anything: a nice cup of coffee!

Also a photo of my grinding machine. Works great and with the safety screen and the goggles I wear it is safe and that is important because I don't want to get any of the glass flinters in my eyes.






Catching up.

Catching up and trying to get to the point where I am now with my bathroom door window.
Made a lot of photo's in the different stages of the progress, for myself mostly because I want to learn from my mistakes....


The new look of the toilet window.

I promised a photo of how the smallest room in the house looks like now.
Here it is.
The green wallpaper is a bit greener in real 'life' than in the photo but it looks much better comparing with the old look as you can see in the post "Finished first window".

Trying out the cuttings.


What I didn't mention before is that an important part of leaded glass windows is....the glass !

In a specialised shop we bought sheats of glass of the colour and pattern we like.
There are so many different kinds of glass in colour, thickness, pattern, which makes it very difficult to choose.
But we finally found the glass we wanted.

vrijdag 4 september 2009

Coding and cutting.

The original drawing I use as working drawing with the different codes for each different piece.
I copied the codes on the replica before cutting them out with special scissors, which take out a strip of paper between the pieces where the lead is going to be.

Copying the design.

After drawing the design in full size, you have to copy it on to another paper which you will use to cut all the different pieces out for cutting the glass.

For this copying I use carbon paper. Used this so many times before when I was a secretary in the pre-computer-age many years ago !!

I also used old wallpaper for the copy, which is handy because it can stand moist and this is good because you might use the cutting to grind the glass and the grinding machine uses water to cool the grinder.


A new project.


After making the small window I was really in the mood for more and we decided to redesign our hallway because it has a sort of dark corner.
Three doors come out in that corner with no windows in them so an idea was born to make a window in the bathroom door because in the bathroom there is a rather big widow so much daylight will come throught the window in the door.

Before starting on this window we looked through a couple of hundred designs on the web and found a few we liked.
I tried to merge some of the features of these designs into a design of my own and above you can see the result.

Finished first window.

This is where I placed my leaded glass window.
It is held in place with a few nails on the inside of the wooden frame.
Looks great I think and I am very pleased with the result.

In the meantime the wooden windowframe was painted eggshell white and the wall was wallpapered limegreen so a whole different colour scheme.
I'll make a new photo to post later.

First project.

My first window.

Trying to learn the basics of making leaded glass windows, this was my first "project".
I kept it simple for a first one to make during a two day work-shop.

The design was partly copied from an example I found on the internet.
Thousands of designs you can find on the web on any subject you can think of.

The next photo is of where the windows was placed: the toilet.