I can't believe how quickly this week has passed! I'd give some kind of legitimate excuse for not posting, but really--I got nothing. Friday we went to a wonderful wedding. Chris, the son of long-time friends of the family, married the sweetest person in the world, Toni. The ceremony was beautiful, the food good, the reception and dancing quite fun. It had been overcast all day (the wedding was outside) and looked like it was going to be foggy for the ceremony, but it all cleared up and everything was beautiful. I was convinced I was going to freeze to death but I had no problems. All in all, a great time.
We also had Day 3 of Stained Glass. This class was pretty darned boring. We got approvals for our designs--she had a small fix for me, which I then erased and drew again. We then traced the pattern so we'd be able to tell where the pieces fit back in, and then cut the patterns with pattern shears. Pattern paper is a stiff paper--a bit thinner than posterboard. Pattern shears look like regular scissors, except they have two blades on the bottom. When they cut, they take out a core of paper that is conveniently the size of the copper foil the edges will be covered with. Unfortunately Kevin and I only got 1 pair of the shears so we had to take turns. That was quite boring.
Most of the day was spent with the teacher either critiquing others' designs, or working with the advanced group. Donkey Kong Woman had added more pieces to her design, but she still has 4 horizontal and at least 4 or 5 vertical "fold lines," which are lines that go all the way across the window and make handling very difficult because the window wants to bend at that seam. Should be interesting. She's really a very nice woman, just not terribly creative (but then again, who am I to be pointing fingers?).
Finally at the end of the day we got a lesson in handling glass and cutting it. The handling glass part freaked both Kevin and I out. You're supposed to store glass vertically, not hold it with your hand underneath, always wear close-toed shoes, etc. I was amazed that we hadn't sliced open an artery already with our mishandling. The cutting demo was good too. Naturally it looks a lot easier than it is. Well technically it's not hard--you take the cutter, which has a carbide wheel on the end, draw it across the glass, then snap it apart with your hands (or with a certain tool). The tough part is figuring out the exact pressure you need to score the glass, and how to apply that same exact pressure throughout the cut.
Both Kevin and I showed up with our fancy self-oiling cutters (by far the most expensive piece of equipment we bought) and mine has a pistol grip which makes things a lot easier for me because my wrist is so weak. This week we get to buy glass for our project, and some plain panes of cheap practice glass.
The teacher demonstrated cutting out a piece of glass from a pattern and I saw immediately why some of my interior angles are going to be very difficult to cut. I think I'll save those for class time. And buy lots of extra glass.
Posted by Shelby at September 11, 2005 02:02 PM