window – Page 5 – Sherry Glaab

Multitasking

Yesterday the friends who will be the recipients of the big Frank Lloyd Wright window came over and we decided to do another layer of resin. I decided that I really needed to move it to the garage for the final layer so I could access all sides of the window, despite the space being more prone to dust / humidity. Luckily it is an unseasonably warm day and the temperature in the garage was 75, which is perfect for my resin (Envirotex Lite).

This took a bit of planning as I had to mix up a lot more resin than usual and keep my family out of the garage (next to impossible today for some reason). However, after pouring, spreading and using my heat gun to clear the resin, everything looks good so far. Hopefully we can move it into the mud room later in the evening so the temperature remains a bit more consistent while it continues to cure overnight. In the meantime, I had a few smaller projects in the works I wanted to continue / start. Unfortunately this included repairs on a holly suncatcher I made yesterday. I had covered it with some wax paper to keep dust out while it cured and the paper made contact with the resin and made a giant mess. I had to carve some lumps off of the suncatcher today when it was cured enough, reinsert it into the mold and sort of “top it off” with another layer of resin. We’ll see how good it looks tomorrow (hopefully). I don’t think it will look as good as it would have had it not needed the repair, but I can likely keep it to use at home.

After chipping off the bumps and reinserting in the mold, prior to repair layer of resin

So all in all, I poured a second layer on three beachy coasters, first layer on two more beachy coasters, repair layer on the holly suncatcher / ornament and the first layers on three snowman ornaments.

Layer two

This afternoon I added a second layer of resin to the panel. Grr. It looks great overall, but the devil is in the details for me. The second layer had some issues. One issue was where the resin didn’t lay invisibly over the first layer. I tried to minimize that by blowing resin into the edges of the glass pieces. However, as bubbles formed, I tried to remove them with the heat gun. One spot in particular “lumped up” when I was doing this. I can repair it by filing down the lumpy parts and pouring a new layer over everything, but one goal was to preserve the texture of the glass I used for the petals of the lilies. If I pour another layer, the texture will be lost.

Two layers of resin

You can’t see it in the photos, but we’ll make a decision after everything cures.

Resin layer #1

Now that I have verified that my resin is OK, I prepared to pour the first layer of resin on the large Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window project I’ve been working on since early August. I used some boards to elevate the window off of the table, then taped around the edge using a layer of painter’s tape and a second outer layer of duct tape.

Yellow painters tape and black super strong duct tape

My hope is that the painters tape will come off easily, while the duct tape will create a strong edge for the resin.

Once all the tape was in place and secure, I mixed 16 ounces of resin and poured it over the panel. I then used a sponge on a stick to distribute the resin as much as I could over the panel. I will have to repeat this with another layer later, as more resin will be needed to fill in all the gaps.

I then used my heat gun to further distribute the resin and remove bubbles that popped up while the resin settled. I spent about an hour and a half doing this.

Now I just need to wait overnight for the first layer to cure. After that, I will repeat with a second and hopefully final layer to fill in the remaining crevices.

No turning back now

Finished securing all the pieces in place with mosaic adhesive. A couple got bumped and aren’t exactly where I’d like them to be, but hopefully not too noticeable. I had to redo a few pieces for various reasons (one piece of glass was just not flat enough, dropped one piece and it broke, etc). Thanks to the hubs for turning the piece around on my work table so I could reach the far side! Now to let the adhesive cure for a week or so. That gives me time to figure out how to elevate the whole piece off of the table surface when I pour the resin.

Pieces all cut!

I finished cutting the last of the pieces for the window – had to use the glass saw for some of the ones around the top flowers. The next step is to start putting them into place permanently with mosaic adhesive before pouring the resin

So close!

I’m getting really close to being done cutting out the pieces of glass! I was able to get more of the medium gray glass from my supplier this week, so I made a lot of progress.

Flowers

Made a bit more progress on the lilies – finished two and started the third.

A few gaps

I finally got to the point where I ran out of the medium / steel blue gray glass (at least the larger pieces). I ordered it a few weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived. Hopefully it will be in next week. In the meantime, I can keep filling in the pieces around those for now.

Pandemic Jigsaw Puzzle

I see a lot of people posting photos of the jigsaw puzzles they’re doing during the pandemic. I guess this is my version! Just a quick post with current progress.

Moving along

Our websites have been repeatedly hacked over the past couple of weeks, so it seems like every time I go to post some pictures we have to fix the website first. Such an annoying waste of time. In any case, here are a few snapshots of my current progress on this project. First I cut the red lines out of each paper piece of the pattern, then I draw the “direction” of the glass that I’m seeking for each piece on the paper. This is helpful when selecting the glass for each piece, since once it’s cut apart from the overall pattern it is hard to tell what directional flow the glass should have. I had to go back and fix the direction I marked on the triangle on the far right below photo as I’ve been tilting those pieces.

The glass I’m using for the white lily petals is highly textured and I tend to cut myself on it a lot, but basically I hand cut each piece as close to the paper pattern piece as I can. I then mark the parts that I need to grind the rest of the way with a sharpie before grinding.

Compare the rough glass to the pattern piece

It’s usually easy to grind it down to the desired shape, though today I did manage to cut myself twice. The second cut was on my right thumb and was ouchy enough that I decided to take a break for the day. This happens all the time – I keep a good supply of band-aids on hand. It’s just part of the territory. A few years ago, the owner of the shop where I buy my glass supplies (Mike from Blue Heron Glass) even handed out little packages of band-aids with his store name on them to customers.

I’m running really low on the medium gray (steel blue) glass, so hopefully Mike has placed another order by now. Otherwise I will just have to work around those pieces for awhile.