Well, faithful readers, today has been another busy day for window-making. It began early when I had a prescient vision that the glass would not be ready (by which I mean I hadn't slept well so I opted for another hour or two of sleep this morning) first thing in the morning, so I rescheduled my day and planned to stop by the glass studio in the afternoon just before my group meeting instead. It turns out this was a good plan (I mean true vision!) because apparently the glass had misfired on Saturday night and needed to be fired again this morning, so it wasn't quite ready when I arrived at 12:45. I'll admit I was rather irked with fate since if all had gone according to plan (aka if the glass had finished by Sunday morning and was ready for me to pick up and go) I would have had plenty of time to make my bus, but that just goes to show that glass is a finicky solid-liquid/liquid-solid thing. After a frantic phonecall to Hilary to let her know she might need to go to our group meeting alone, we took the glass out of the kiln. (And now, faithful readers, we return to my usual picture followed by commentary format.)
I was delighted to find out that nothing had exploded or cracked or filled with bubbles. It in fact looked quite lovely. Apparently there was a bit of blistering, though I had trouble seeing it. One scary thing we noticed though was that the red glass had turned pretty much opaque and black. Fortunately, it started turning clearer and more red as it cooled. This picture is from about 15 minutes after it came out of the kiln, and as you can see, it's still quite dark. By the time it cooled completely, it was pretty much back to its original colour. Shows you really want to know what's making your glass a given colour though, and what happens if it's reheated.
After our group meeting (I made it to the second half) we headed over to Brenda's place again, where Hilary predicted that the glass "was going to turn into a monster... a crazed glass monster that will razor us to death. To dead tiny bits," proving that her visions of the future are not as accurate as the ones I'm claiming I had. (I felt the need to record that quote in my notebook immediately. I'm sure you can understand why. Anyway...) We set the painted pieces into our pattern and got to work cutting. The above shows us already at work, with more blue pieces and more red cut than we had left off with on Wednesday.
While cutting, we learned some intriguing things. It turns out that if you make cuts for multiple pieces, it doesn't crack crazily all over the place, and what's more...
Sometimes you get a piece that more or less fits into another spot. We think maybe this explains some of why there are so many small pieces in the windows. Not only was it possibly tougher to manage big flat sheets of glass, but also they cut/shattered with heat several fragments and then fit them together like a puzzle rather than planning it out and cutting pieces to fit each little pre-drawn panel like we're doing. Probably a much more efficient method altogether. (Unfortunately, we had already cut a piece for that particular space, and the one we had fit a bit better.)
Anyway, we kept cutting and placing...
And cutting and placing...
And measuring and aligning and cutting...
And wiggling and wobbling and nudging and placing...
Until we had cut out pieces 20-36 (16 pieces) of blue, 16 pieces of red, 2 pieces of green, and 42 pieces of amber glass and placed them in our pattern. Right around then, with absolutely perfect timing, Brenda made us some tea, and we were more than delighted to take a bit of a break.
(This picture is just to show that after all that cutting and numbering, I somehow managed to get ink all over my fingers and hands. Hilary's hands were very clean in comparison. I have mad skills.)
After our delicious Russian tea, we came back and got started caming. Instead of beginning in a corner like we did with our practice windows, we followed Theophilus' advice and began with the face, nailing it into place on our numbered pattern.
We then figured the wheel was a good central feature and much more complex than the wheelwright, so we'd really begin there. So far, I think we feel the modern method of starting in a braced corner is
much easier than the medieval method of starting in the middle. Of course, that could just be because the wheel is painfully complex, both to cut and to came. Anyway, this is where we stopped for the day, after about an hour of caming.
And here, for a slightly different perspective, is the section of glass we've taken out and camed. Not a bad start, especially considering just how many little tiny pieces are in there, but we still have a lot of work to do. Time to let my fingers recover for a night before we get back to work tomorrow.
I was delighted to find out that nothing had exploded or cracked or filled with bubbles. It in fact looked quite lovely. Apparently there was a bit of blistering, though I had trouble seeing it. One scary thing we noticed though was that the red glass had turned pretty much opaque and black. Fortunately, it started turning clearer and more red as it cooled. This picture is from about 15 minutes after it came out of the kiln, and as you can see, it's still quite dark. By the time it cooled completely, it was pretty much back to its original colour. Shows you really want to know what's making your glass a given colour though, and what happens if it's reheated.
After our group meeting (I made it to the second half) we headed over to Brenda's place again, where Hilary predicted that the glass "was going to turn into a monster... a crazed glass monster that will razor us to death. To dead tiny bits," proving that her visions of the future are not as accurate as the ones I'm claiming I had. (I felt the need to record that quote in my notebook immediately. I'm sure you can understand why. Anyway...) We set the painted pieces into our pattern and got to work cutting. The above shows us already at work, with more blue pieces and more red cut than we had left off with on Wednesday.
While cutting, we learned some intriguing things. It turns out that if you make cuts for multiple pieces, it doesn't crack crazily all over the place, and what's more...
Sometimes you get a piece that more or less fits into another spot. We think maybe this explains some of why there are so many small pieces in the windows. Not only was it possibly tougher to manage big flat sheets of glass, but also they cut/shattered with heat several fragments and then fit them together like a puzzle rather than planning it out and cutting pieces to fit each little pre-drawn panel like we're doing. Probably a much more efficient method altogether. (Unfortunately, we had already cut a piece for that particular space, and the one we had fit a bit better.)
Anyway, we kept cutting and placing...
And cutting and placing...
And measuring and aligning and cutting...
And wiggling and wobbling and nudging and placing...
Until we had cut out pieces 20-36 (16 pieces) of blue, 16 pieces of red, 2 pieces of green, and 42 pieces of amber glass and placed them in our pattern. Right around then, with absolutely perfect timing, Brenda made us some tea, and we were more than delighted to take a bit of a break.
(This picture is just to show that after all that cutting and numbering, I somehow managed to get ink all over my fingers and hands. Hilary's hands were very clean in comparison. I have mad skills.)
After our delicious Russian tea, we came back and got started caming. Instead of beginning in a corner like we did with our practice windows, we followed Theophilus' advice and began with the face, nailing it into place on our numbered pattern.
We then figured the wheel was a good central feature and much more complex than the wheelwright, so we'd really begin there. So far, I think we feel the modern method of starting in a braced corner is much easier than the medieval method of starting in the middle. Of course, that could just be because the wheel is painfully complex, both to cut and to came. Anyway, this is where we stopped for the day, after about an hour of caming.
And here, for a slightly different perspective, is the section of glass we've taken out and camed. Not a bad start, especially considering just how many little tiny pieces are in there, but we still have a lot of work to do. Time to let my fingers recover for a night before we get back to work tomorrow.
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