Second Stained Glass Project

So for my second stained glass project, I decided to do a wall hanging. I hunted around online and found a pattern for this lamp. I took part of it, cropped it to make it shorter, and used it for my pattern.


When doing stained glass, you need to have several copies of your pattern to work with. The one on the right (with the color) was my master. I took one of the other copies and used pattern shears to cut out my guide pieces.


You can see in this photo how the shears cut out a thin strip. This is to allow you extra room for the foil and solder. I double-checked my cut-out pattern pieces against my master pattern, and then glued them onto the glass I was using.


Next, I scored the glass with an oil-carbide glass cutter (visible on the lower left), then used running pliers to break the glass along the score. Once the piece was free of the larger sheet of glass, I trimmed it down with a couple of smaller breaks.


After I had all of my pieces roughly cut out, I ground them down until they matched the pattern. Next, I wrapped the edges in copper foil, applied flux, and soldered the edges.

Unfortunately, it was impossible for me to take pictures and solder simultaneously. Basically, I used tin/lead solder to join all the pieces, and made little wire loops to hang the piece on the wall. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it considering it was my first solo piece. It certainly brightens up the bathroom, at any rate.