Recently in Stained glass Category

Still feeling rather sick and woeful, but as I haven't gotten worse since Wednesday, I guess I don't have the piggy flu after all. I was, anyway, well enough to get to the last glass class of the term. There was still so much left to do on my shade that I don't think I could have finished it even if I'd been feeling 100%.

While unpacking our projects, I got talking to one of the advanced students, Gill, and she offered to give me a ride if I want to come back for the next two terms. I hate to leave the shade unfinished, and I'm enjoying stained glass much, much more than expected. I guess I may as well take advantage of low-fee community classes now, whatever the government decides to do next year.

Okay, lampshade stuff...

Here, I am having more soldering fun joining the green and orange pieces together for the lamp skirt. The flux is oily and the fumes are awful, but the magpie in me finds it difficult to resist touching the beautiful shining balls of hot solder rolling off the iron onto the newspaper. I burn my fingertips several times during the class, but pride keeps me from yelping out with pain.

With all ten sets of the skirt pieces finally soldered, I prepare to attach the spider to the main part of the shade. Procuring the spider has been tricky. I was going to have to go all the way out to Pukerua Bay again to get one from Olaf, but fortunately found a place in Newtown that could order one for me. It then took several phone calls during work time to confirm I could have one in time for class, causing curious co-workers to send emails: "What are you ordering a spider for? And why do you have to have one by Wednesday?", except that they used about six extra question and exclamation marks. I work with some very excitable folks.

I need to apply patches of solder on to the ends of the spider's five spokes, so I can then solder the whole thing on to the shade. The spokes are smooth metal and the solder refuses to attach, even when Greg shows me how to roughen the spokes up a bit with some random tool I do not know the name of. In the end we resort to using a different type of flux, which is more corrosive and more spluttery, but helps the solder attach a lot better. Then at last I solder the spider to the shade. Here, badly framed, but looking yet another step closer to a real lampshade.

This is as far as I get by the end of the class. I chose to bring all my stuff home with me for safe-keeping and more photo opportunities. Here, witness up close, my stellar soldering skillz:

And, also, one of many burn injuries from the night, when I accidentally pressed one of the hot spokes of the spider against my arm. It didn't hurt for long, and now only resembles a soy sauce stain.

This is the end of my first eight weeks with stained glass. I expected to enjoy myself, but am surprised at just how much I actually loved it. This has to be the only community class I've attended where I looked forward to every single class (which says a lot, it having been a winter term and all). I especially liked the project-based aspect of the course, being able to work at something big and challenging, achieving a bit more every week, and seeing results without the bother of homework and mid-week practicing required in language classes.

Stay tuned for more stained-glass adventures, kids.

I arrive at class tonight with all thirty pieces copper-foiled so, as promised, I get to begin soldering. It is unbelievably fun, melting and dripping that stuff all over the place. I solder together three sets of the two small green and orange pieces that make up the lampshade skirt and will be able to finish the remaining seven sets next week.

Greg then helps me assemble and tape together the main pieces of the shade, and together we raise it up and tack solder all the pieces together. He is so calm about the whole thing that I only realise later that what we were doing was the most precarious and delicate part of the lampshade-making operation, the very thing Dave had warned me about.

I spend the rest of the class carefully peeling off the bits of blue tape and tack-soldering more of the joints between each piece to strengthen them. The whole thing feels pretty sturdy now. Next week, I will turn it upside down and solder the inside of the shade. Sometime before then, I also need to buy a four or five-legged spider crossbar, which I believe is the first of the few lamp fittings I will need to acquire.

It's all getting terribly exciting, and seeing it come together all of a sudden tonight was so super thrilling. It's the last class next week. Greg says I will "come very close" to finishing my shade. I mean to take that as a challenge!

I'm now anxious to get as much as possible of my lampshade finished before term ends. So, in tonight's class, I didn't stop to chat or nosy at other people's projects, just head down, cut and grind, cut and grind, cut and grind for what felt like hours until I had all thirty pieces done. Then - hooray! - Greg showed me how to copper-foil them. It is an extremely satisfying process, making the pieces all look somehow instantly prettier, shinier and more perfect. I brought all the pieces home with me tonight, and finished foiling them at the coffee table. Here, let me show off just a little bit:

Next week, the fun stuff: soldering!

And in between, dinner at Clooney's, and seeing Simon and Garfunkel live-o! Happy days.

I paid a visit to The Glass Shoppe in Lower Hutt this morning to buy some copper foil, solder and solder flux.

The nice, friendly salesperson asked all about my project. The point was made yet again about just how ambitious I've been to take on a lampshade. He actually said, "That's like going to the Olympics when you just start playing sport!". I asked him what people normally begin with, and he said it depends on the sort of person you are; some people just like to dive straight into difficult projects. That made me feel slightly better, although truthfully, I still don't know just how hard a lampshade will be to make. I chose it simply because I wanted to make something pretty and functional.

I'm feeling rather frustrated now, however. Not because of how hard I can expect my project to be, but because I can already see that the lampshade is not going to be anywhere near as pretty as I had hoped. The pieces are too large and the shape frankly quite ugly. I should have asked Greg more questions and put more thought and planning into the design. If I had known that I was not going to be able to finish the lampshade this term anyway, I would probably have picked a different design, something more for its aesthetic than its simplicity to make.

Never mind, this is only my first project. I hope there will be more to come.

Too busy cutting and grinding to take many snaps tonight. Here's what I got done though. Six down, four to go:

I may or may not have silicosis after spending the better part of tonight's class grinding these pieces down. My cutting skills still leave plenty to be desired. I also sustained a tiny injury from the grinder, opening some skin on my left index finger by getting too excitably close to the grinder head.

I really want to finish cutting and grinding next week and get on to foiling and soldering. That is yet an unknown to me, so I don't know how long it will take. I now see it's quite likely I won't finish the lampshade this term. But there is the possibility of going back for next term's class to finish it, then to try my hand at one of these far prettier and more interesting lampshades.