Shiela's Glass

The finished item

2008-09-14T14:00:00.001-07:00

I couldn't be more happy with the finished item:

Nearly there!

2008-09-14T13:55:00.001-07:00

This picture shows nearly all of the pieces in place, including the top border and some of the lower gridwork:

Most of the outside soldering done:

And all of the soldering finished! Only the washing up and blacking the lead to go.

foiled again

2008-08-11T12:25:00.001-07:00

The foiling is well underway now. Each piece has to be wrapped in thin copper tape so that the pieces can be soldered together. It's the final chance to touch the pieces of glass on the grinder if necessary so that they fit together perfectly and make the soldered seams nice and even.

A milestone

2008-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

All of the pieces for the main part of the lamp are cut and ground now. Here begins the
foiling.

Progress...

2008-07-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

All of the pieces for the golden poppy lamp are now cut out. I'm grinding ('grozing') each piece for a perfect fit with its neighbours. Once ground, each piece is fastened to the polystyrene mould using glass-headed pins.

I've hit a minor setback. I need more pins, the one shop in town that's likely to sell them has run out (with more on order). I'm going out walking!

Tiffany Poppy in golden colours

2008-06-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

It's been two years since I've picked up my glass cutter. Something about this request tempted me though. The chosen design is Tiffany's Poppy design - the 16" version in these golden colours:

The first step was to go shopping for glass. I was very pleased with the colours that I found.

The colours are very close to those in the picture of the Tiffany Lamp - the background glass is a pale gold, (the manufacturer calls it 'laburnum') It's fairly translucent and 'etherial'. It looks quite pale when not lit, but takes on subtle amber tones when lit. The glass for the poppy petals is richer in colour, and a more solid glass, which will make the poppies stand out against the background.

The next big step was to clear, clean, tidy and hoover the workshop. With that done, each of the 300-ish pieces needs to be cut and ground for a perfect fit.