Stained Glass Guide

hey guys my name is alex greenfield and today we're going to be making a stained glass window i'm going to go through all the steps and all the materials needed to get your project started let's go the first and most important step in any stained glass project is having a proper pattern you can find these online or draw them yourselves an example of a pattern that i found online was this one from glasspatterns.com this would be a perfect thing to print out and follow along with this video the project i'm working on today is actually for a customer so i hand drew the image and i'll be using that pattern for this video one of the first questions that arise when you're working on your stained glass project is what's your work surface well this is it this is called homosode you can get this at any big box store it ranges from 25 to 30 it comes in a four by eight sheet so it might be kind of tricky to put in your cart so i'm going to give you a quick demonstration on how to cut this down you can do it in a store and when you get home so you can have the right size for your project so here's my pattern it's about 28 inches by 30 inches when i cut this homo soap board i'm going to want to leave a perimeter around my pattern i'll show you why in a little bit and i'm also going to leave a space over here so that i can cut my glass on it so cutting the homicide is very easy it's actually the same concept as cutting glass all you do is score it and break it let's get started with a little bit of luck [Music] perfect we're almost ready to start cutting the glass the last step we have to do is set up a blocking system this is two rails that go across the top and the side of your stained glass you can purchase online a layout blocking system and they range from thirty to fifty dollars i never found a purpose for it i use trim from home depot or lowe's it works just as well and it costs a fraction of the price all right i know some of you guys are watching this video saying why don't you use an official layout blocking system if you have a good reason why i should get one leave it in the comments and i'll look it up okay so let's get started i'm going to attach my pattern to the board and then i'm actually going to use a right angle you could even use a picture frame or a book something that's square i'm going to set it down and trace my lines in that way i'll be able to set my blocking system on the lines staple it down and we'll be ready to start cutting the glass an easy way to keep your railing in place while you nail it in is to simply use some super glue glue it on stick it down so it stays in place and then when you nail it it won't shift [Music] all right i'm really excited it's finally time to cut some glass i'm going to show you a list of tools and i'll explain their functions as we go let's go kick some glass watch what [Laughter] [Applause] the first two we're going to adjust today are pattern shears these are special scissors with two blades on the bottom and one on top what this does is it cuts out a strip of paper which allows space for the foil taping all you have to do is use them like regular pair of scissors and you just follow the line that you're cutting keeping this in the center and it will extract this black line now we have our pattern piece cut out make sure all your pieces are numbered so you don't end up with a glass jigsaw puzzle the next step is gluing our pattern onto our piece of glass you want to make sure that when you glue it on you glue it onto the proper side one side of glass generally is smooth and the other one has a bit more texture if it doesn't it doesn't matter what side when you glue on your pattern you want to make sure that it's also facing the right direction this side has more of a reflective side and then the back is more matte all right so i want this to be in the front so when i glue on my pattern i want to make sure that the shapes correct now i have to pick the location of my piece where i'm going to cut out of the glass if i look at this texture it goes vertical i'm going to turn it so that it's horizontal this way it matches the flow of my water better now that i found the right location for my pattern on my glass i'm going to glue it down just with a simple glue stick now it's time to talk glass cutters this is one i use it's a pencil grip glass cutter it has a chamber inside for oil and you hold it like a pencil they have other types such as a pistol grip which you hold like this and the blade comes down i don't prefer that some people with arthritis say it's easier to use you know put in the comments below and we'll find out who likes why so this glass cutter is kind of like a mini pizza wheel with oil on it there's a small round disc right up there that you rub against the glass and it scores the glass what it does is it breaks the surface tension once it breaks the surface tension all you have to do is snap the glass and it comes apart it's very easy the key when cutting the glass is not to push too hard or not to push too softly you can generally tell if you push too hard it creates chips and if you push too softly you won't see anything so i just made my score now i need to do my running pliers alright these are running pliers what they do is they have a curved jaw on the top and a flat jaw on the bottom what happens is that curved jaw will push down on both sides of the crack and it will split the glass look at that beautiful i have a scrap of glass here i'll show you the characteristics of the glass something that's interesting is when you're making a cut you have to continue your cut meaning you can't stop halfway and then make a turn you have to continue your cut straight alright so if you want to make a curved piece like this and let's say this would be the piece you want to keep you would actually have to continue your curve all the way off and then you'd have to cut the glass again down this way and that's how you would get your piece obviously if this is a right angle you would move your piece over here so you wouldn't have this waist i'll be making two cuts the first one i'm going to do is going to be incorrect it's going to actually be too hard hopefully in the camera you'll be able to see it will chip up and it won't work properly alright so i hold it like a pencil you can either go forward or backwards however you want it i'm going to go forward make sure when you start your cut you start at the edge of the glass and work all the way to the other side one continuous cut this is going to be extra hard all right if you heard it it just sounds like poppy and like uh it's cracking it should still be able to break you can break it with your hand but this is pretty narrow so i don't want it to um what's it called cut my hand so it still worked but you have like a nasty jagged edge the proper strength for it a little bit softer it sounds a little bit different but that's how you do it and then you line up your pliers i'll show you in depth another way to break glass is to simply break it with your hands obviously if it's small you want to be careful and use a tool so you don't cut yourself the easiest way to break it is just to imagine you're breaking a piece of chocolate i pre-scored the line and then marked it so that you can see where the break is hold it like this tight just snap it apart these are called grozing pliers these are for nibbing and extracting small pieces of glass off your pattern piece if you look closely there's a curved side of the jaw and a flat side of the jaw and inside are small teeth that are used to file down the glass when you nib all right here's a good example of how to use nibs your knitting pliers basically i'm going to try to clean out this edge along the uh the pattern i'm going to have my curve jaw up and hold the piece like this i'm wearing glasses safety goggles all right and then you just kind of break the pieces away kind of lift up like that and you just kind of rub the glass against the jaws just like that so to pull this small piece off i could just use my grossing pliers all right i'll use the flat side up the flat side jaw up you get up right to the line i already scored it and then all you have to do is pull and it comes right off and then i'll clean this up just with my pliers i'm doing this over a trash can because uh taking about two seconds to realize how messy this is there you go so you can watch as many youtube videos as you like i mean at the end of the day you're gonna pick up your own technique and these these type of tools they just they just get some getting used to and you learn the glass i mean every glass has a little bit different characteristics too if there's thick spots or thin spots it causes your crack to run in weird ways i usually get my glass at a uh it's called rainbow art glass i used to live near new jersey but we just moved so now i'm resorting to uh hobby lobby it's kind of a sin um they have decent stuff but you know nothing like this handmade stuff that i used to get roughly the same price too it's even more shameful okay for this same thing i'm just gonna use my pliers clean it out see now like i was using the flat side but i just feel like this amount of lip would be better with the round side so i switch around i know somebody's gonna freak out and write in the comments that i'm using them upside down but it's preference whatever works works you'd be amazed how accurate you can get with these things so i've been cutting all my pieces out and i wasn't happy this was made of two separate pieces and i wasn't happy the way it looked and i want to turn it into one piece so i'm going to show you how to adjust your pattern then you take a piece of scrap paper and you slide it underneath all your pieces once you have your paper underneath your pattern take a fine point marker and you can actually just trace this technique can be used to manipulate pieces if you accidentally cut a big piece and it cracked off a tiny bit and you want to just readjust your pieces so that your next piece will accommodate the gap where the crack was um this is a good technique to use i use it all the time there's your piece so i want to address grinders they're not necessary but extremely useful and i would almost consider them necessary you hear a lot of people saying oh i've been cutting glass for 30 years and i've never needed a grinder and they're like my age so i don't know but uh they're extremely useful tools and they help a lot they can be abused and you don't want to abuse them what i mean by that is you don't want to use them to take away too much glass it's basically just meant to clean up your piece if you look at this piece it's basically right onto the pattern but there are some jagged edges also over here it's like a very fragile piece so i don't want to nib that too much so that's what i'm going to use the grinder for also what's good about the grinder is it will make a perfectly smooth edge where right now this is uh quite bumpy and so what that will do is allow the tape to adhere better and your pieces to fit in after i cut each piece i will run my piece around the grinder just softly to knock off any of the sharp edges so i don't end up cutting myself just keep in mind when you use your grinder it's a tool not a crutch this is a basic grinder you fill it with water and then the sponge will soak up the water and it cools the blade as it spins and grinds i really like grinders for parts like these where it's very fine and i'm afraid that i'll break off a piece so you can get right down to the pattern all right there's an edge that's been properly ground just nice and smooth if you have anything that can cut you so this is gonna be a really fun pattern piece to cut out i say that sarcastically there's a concave piece here and then there's also this very fine point which is actually necessary so i can't let that break off so what i'm going to do is i'm going to leave a little bit of extra glass on the outside and that's a perfect time when i'm going to use my grinder just to finesse it so i don't break that tip off for this concave angle it's not so deep but all i'm going to do is i'm actually going to do a series of here i'll do two cuts i'll do one right along the pattern line and one a little bit shallower so i can pop them out if this is deeper you just do a few more relief cuts and then you you take each section out one at a time my fingers underneath putting pressure to fulcrum underneath the uh the crack then i'm just going to pull out like that it should just come right out slowly just work the crack pops right out now for this tip i'm going to be extra careful this was my luck i'm going to break it so before i cut this i could score it here or here first i'm actually going to score it here first because this is more of a difficult cut so that way there's more strength behind this narrow piece you just always have to think about how you're going to approach your cuts the piece that i just pulled off for that concave curve this is why i did this side first because if this was gone there's a very good chance it would have snapped off my tip i also want to take into consideration now when i take off my tip this is super fragile so what i'm going to do is i'm actually going to leave a little bit of space a glass a little bit wider just to help me a tiny bit and then i'm going to clean it up on the grinder that way i don't have any risk of snapping off the tip i'm also going to break it from the tip side this way so that the glass if it's going to run it's it's going to run in this direction instead of coming towards my tip where there's a weaker point there we go just broke it off my wife is laughing upstairs because i keep messing up my line as you can see there's a lot of techniques in cutting glass all you have to do is practice and your project will come out perfect so up to my favorite step in the stained glass process the foil taping and if you wonder why it's my favorite step it doesn't involve cutting yourself and you get a drink beer and watch the three stooges let's get started so what we're going to do in this step is we're going to take our piece of glass and we're going to wrap it with foil tape this way our solder will adhere properly you'll need is your copper foil tape an exacto knife and a burnishing tool this can actually be a stained glass burnishing tool or you can even use a pen cap whatever works for you so i have a fancy foiler and i'll show you how it works i would recommend getting one if you have big projects with two or three hundred pieces because it saves you about 30 to 45 seconds per piece and that adds up quite fast before you foil tape any of your glass you want to make sure that you wipe down all the edges with a damp rag to get off any glass dust so it doesn't prevent any of the adhesion of the tape this box functions as a tape dispenser for your foil tape there's a paper backing and then the foil itself and then the adhesive side is in between the paper peels off quite easily for foiling by hand i found the easiest way is to look vertically down and try to center your piece as best as possible you don't want one side to be larger than the other because it will show through the glass especially if you're using cathedral glass so what you do is you press it down and i'll even pinch the sides a little bit when i first start and then i'm looking vertically down at my piece just trying to split it what i found easy is when you have a straight edge if you lay it on the table and pull then you can just line your piece right in the middle and it automatically centers it make sure when you tear your tape that there's roughly a quarter of an inch overlap to accidentally tear your tape halfway through a piece just overlap a quarter of an inch and continue your piece to burnish your piece all you have to do is rub down the edges going inwards you don't want to peel the tape off so you just go around and smooth out this way will seal off and prevent any flux from entering inside the glass in between the tape i know there's some people who say it's not necessary to burnish the edges of your glass but i like to do it anyways really quick run it through there you have it in general there are three widths of foil tape there's three sixteenths seven thirty seconds and a quarter of an inch i generally go with 7 30 seconds i'll use a quarter inch if i'm working with very thick glass i plan on using a black patina on my solder so i'm using a black backed foil tape if you want to leave your solder silver i'd recommend using a silver backed tape and if you want to make a copper use a copper back whenever i look at a stained glass project of someone's the first thing i do is look at the soldering line this generally tells me the skill set so if you're first starting i would recommend going with the 7 30 seconds because it leaves a narrow strip and the soldering is much easier once you get to larger spaces it's harder to keep a consistent bead so this is my blaster stained glass spoiler it took me a few years to get it and i wish i got it sooner basically it dispenses your tape and it will split the paper and then it comes through this front this lifts up and there's a track here and there's grooves underneath which will align your glass perfectly on the center of the tape so you can run through large pieces very quickly this is a tremendous amount of time and it's only about fifty dollars so on even one to two projects i find it justifiable if you uh if you can afford it i'd recommend getting one i'll show you how it works normally i have this mounted to my workbench but for the sake of the video i have it sitting on my table once you wipe the dust off your glass all you have to do is put it in this groove and you spin it they claim that it burnishes the edges but it does a very poor job so you do have to go over and make sure that it's nice and tight then you can tear it i usually have scissors so i don't touch it but they're not next to me and there you go just burnish the edges and you're ready to rock in your window you definitely want gaps because this allows the solder to melt in between but sometimes the gaps are too large for example this spot right here this is quite a large gap if i were to fill that with solder chances are i would just leach through on the other side when it melts so i'm going to show you how to fill that the first option to fill your gaps is to use copper re-strip this is a flat wire that you put in between your glass pieces to actually reinforce your window however i don't like to use this because the width of this is a little too high and it stands proud of the window so you'll see a bump the next option is to use your copper foiling tape all you have to do is peel off the back stick it together and fit it in the hole my preferred method is to actually use copper wire roughly 20 gauge this is actually electrical wire so there's multiple strands i actually cut this out of an old washing machine that broke and i had it in mind to use for this project you can use solid copper wire as well personally i like using the electrical wire because when you twist it there's still space which allows the solder to adhere in between the fibers so to fill this gap all i'm going to do is i'm going to take my wire and twist it so the fibers are tight it's the same process if you're using the wreath strip or the copper foil just cut it i'll either use a popsicle stick or my burnishing tool to press the wire into the gap so that will be sufficient just make sure when you put your wire in that it's underneath the level of the glass for really small gaps like this i'll just take a tiny bit of foil tape and crumple it up and stick it in so now we're about to start the final steps of our stained glass window we have the soldering the patina and then the polishing there are various types of solder on the market you should always use a stained glass solder the differences in the solder depend on the percentage of lead and tin the most common solders are 50 50 which is 50 lead in 50 tin and 60 40 which is 60 tin and 40 lead the two main differences between these solders are their melting point and their cost 50 50 solder melts at a higher temperature and it also costs about five six dollars less generally when i start my project i'll tack my glass with a 50 50 and also fill in any gaps the reason why i fill gaps in with the 5050 is it has a higher melting point so there's less of a chance for my solder to leak through the bottom of my project 6040 takes a little bit longer to solidify which lowers the chances of rippling or imperfections in your project if you want to just get started the best choice is to go straight to 60 40. for the sake of the video i'll be using 60 40 for my entire project there's tons of options and price points when it comes to purchasing a soldering iron when purchasing your solder make sure that you get a soldering station as well you can get them for roughly fifteen dollars and they'll prevent you from burning down your house which is a good idea the soldering station i have has an adjustable temperature which allows me to manipulate the heat if i'm going to be doing something more decorative or if i'm working with different types of solder it also comes with a sponge this allows you to clean off your tip as you're working another necessary purchase is flux make sure that you get one that's meant for stained glass along with the flux you also need flux brushes these are special brushes used to apply the flux onto your foil tape it's a good idea to have ventilation in your workshop as well if you don't have a way to ventilate your spot you can purchase small desktop ventilation systems which will suck out all of the bad stuff that you don't want in your lungs rather than explaining my process i'll video what i'm doing and then i'll speak out my thoughts as i'm working enjoy so we're gonna start tacking our project all you have to do pretty easy process i don't like using a lot of flux people like using a lot and i see them smearing it around and it drives me crazy all right so what we're going to do is at every joint there's a lot of joints here but at every joint we're just going to put a bead of solder to hold everything in place make sure all your pieces are pushed down i only do a few spots at a time so i can keep track what i flux or not what i like to do is i'll just put the wire down all right and i like a high bead so i'll do that and i'll i'll move it around when i tack my pattern i like to bring out a little bit of the solder along the edges so they're easier to connect and it becomes seamless so so i'm going to walk you through soldering now all right when i have a big panel like this i actually like to just tack a few areas and then solder it and then move on to a new section that way i can just keep track of what i'm doing so i'm going to walk you through my process the first step is to tack i like to look at these as almost pit stops i'll explain what i mean in a minute any areas with large gaps or i have a filler in i'll make sure to get the solder in at the joints pretty deeply then i'll go over it again for my final pass this way i can keep a consistent bead i found for the best results is to have the longest stretch of line possible all right so what i'll do is i'll do this line first depending on my angle i'll either have my solder underneath or on top for right now i'm going to have it underneath so i put this this is why i call it a pit stop i kind of re-wet the joint and i try to keep making my way in trick is just being consistent and then here's a joint okay so honestly this looks pretty good but it's not exactly to my liking so what i'm going to do is i'm actually going to go over it again with just a little bit of flux not too much you don't want it to bubble up too much if your solder is bubbling up a lot that means you put too much flux on it if you stay in one spot too long you could crack your glass but it also creates ripples in your solder so you want to always be moving as best as you can see there's a nice line along here like this so i'm actually going to bring it the solder from here and move it all the way through here all right i see that there's quite a bit at this end quite a bit of solder so what i'm going to do is i'm going to pull this my solder away and then bring this solder out along the joint you'll see what i'm doing in a second so now i pull it away bring it in i'm going in at an angle again and try to quickly pull this through as smooth as i can then bring it up to that joint you'll see it dries quite nicely there's quite a bit of solder here i don't really like that's what i'm going to do is i'm going to heat up this section and then just pull out like that i'm going to do it again and just pull out be careful because it's a lot of solder at the tip i'm just going to thin it out all right so over here now this looks pretty bad it's going to come around here into this so what i'm going to do is going to reapply a little flux thinking if i'm going to go this way or this way i'm going to go this way i'm going to heat this joint up and so when it pulls and then i'm just going to pull it the pool over to thin out some of that solder over there i'm also going to put it down at an angle a bit of an angle like that i'm just going to pull it and then over here add the solder i just want to stay as consistent and smooth as possible i'm getting to this joint i'm going to pull it all the way through the joint like that and it leaves a really nice joint that's how you get good joints is by pulling it through all right it's all about your planning so i have this section here i'm actually just going to start the section here and bring it up and then bring it back down and then pull it through this way so bring it here pull it like this keep pulling and pull it out all right over here is like a little messy and this is bare so i'm gonna put a little flux on it i'm going to take a tiny bit of flock uh solder just like that and pull it through so here's a good line it's going to go all the way down here and around i'm gonna get to this joint right there so i'm gonna actually have to tack that there's a tiny piece of filler in there so i'm just gonna make sure it's well fed so it doesn't mess with the flow of my bead once again consistency is the trick to getting a smooth bead you just want to be as consistent as possible ah that's stuck just gonna pull it off okay that was pretty good and it's pretty smooth right here over here is really messy so what i'm going to do so i'm going to put the flux there and then i'm actually just going to pull it through the joint and start up here i'm actually going to put a decent amount on and just allow it to pull itself in come around to this joint heat it up a bit and pull it through this spot i know there's filler underneath it it's not so pretty so i'm going to actually put a little bit of flux on that i'm gonna fill this gap there's a tiny gap it's not just a big deal okay so what i'm gonna do is i'm actually going to hold my iron a little bit above this seam so that it actually builds up on top of the solder and then i'm just going to move it around and then come down this way actually i'm going to move it and pull through first and then i'll come down this way and pull through on that side so i'm actually holding my iron a little bit above it i'm just pulling through okay for this side i'm just going to run it down here and pull it through again pull it through these little beads will come off you have to worry about that all right same thing with this one so i'm actually going to stop i'm going to put this flat down the edge of my iron right at the end of that joint and then try to lift it up right here so that way i'm basically cutting off the joint and adding on to it and then lifting up like that so this gives you nice clean joints right this is a straight line straight shot so i'll be doing that next so i'm just gonna put my hair into it so what do you think of my joints as pit stops they kind of assist was like a gas station i kind of assist with my uh my solder so i don't have to worry too much about when we get to joints because generally there's a crack in a joint and the solder seeps in and then it's hard to maneuver your iron all right and then this one i'm gonna start here and i'm just gonna pull it through on this this purple glass is a little bit tricky to solder it's super textured and taping it was a nightmare kept tearing that's why this is like this is because it kept tearing i just kind of gave up on it figured no one's going to notice except you and me so this is a pretty hefty joint right here so i'll bring the solder in and then right when i get about here i'll stop and i'm just going to pull it through onto the glass keep moving you want to try your best never to stop for the sake of the glass and also your joint just pull that through trying to move fast all right so i just washed i just washed all of the flux and the spatter off um outside it was raining so i didn't want to film it but basically all i did was use some dawn dish soap and a scrub brush like this and just scrubbed it down cleaned up any of the edges with an exacto knife if i saw any parts and um just wiped it down with a soft cotton rag and made sure it's completely dry the next step now is to put tina to solder the first step to patinaing is actually using some steel wool i have quadrupled zero steel wool all we're going to do is we're going to rub down all the soldering joints with some of the steel wool what it's going to do is it's going to scratch the surface which will allow the acid to seep in you'll see it buffs the solder out really nicely once you're done buffing out the solder i just take my brush try to get off the little fragments of the steel wool so this is the patina i use what i'm going to do is i'm just going to pour it on to the window in a few places honestly if you have a little square bottle that work great too all right and then with my brush i'm just gonna circulate all the patina you don't want to leave the patina on too long because it will stain your glass so i like to leave it for roughly five minutes and then i'm going to take this outside and rinse it off all right so i'll let this sit for five to ten minutes and then i'm gonna take it outside and i'm just gonna rinse it off with cold water just outside spray it with a hose actually just cold water and the last step is now to polish it so you want to make sure it's mixed up really well i use clarity stained glass finishing compound just want to take a soft rag like a t-shirt something cotton i just squirt it on like that that should be plenty just want to work around the seams and get all the spots even if you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there this is plenty for the entire window if you want this to speed up the drying process you can actually um it says you put a heat lamp on it all right you know put in front of a heater small space heater that will speed it up i'm also not moving my rag i'm keeping my rag in one spot so that way it's not absorbing all the wax looking at the reflection in the light to see if there's any spots i missed in the glass all right i'll be back in about 45 minutes to an hour so this is what it looks like when the wax sets up it gets white so we're ready to buff it off just gonna use a cotton rag so here's the final project the glass is actually hung over a cavity in a wall and behind it i projected some led lights that have a wave pattern and it's neat because it has a bunch of different color options and everything and it's also remote control so you just point at it i'm very happy with the way it came out now i'm turning off the lights so you can see without the uh the box lights so it came out pretty cool so i made the frame as well the frame is using a technique called intarsia it's out of poplar and i sprayed it black paint and then polished it out with some steel wool and uh furniture wax uh the customer was super happy and i i absolutely loved the project as well i couldn't be happier i hope you guys learned a lot from this video and please give me a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe i'm only putting out high quality videos and i hope you can learn from my uh process and i'd love to hear comments as well as any tips or tricks to improve my process or yours let's learn together all right thanks guys and have a good one

Channel: ALEX GREENFIELD

Views: 134,848

Rating: 4.9617891 out of 5

Keywords: art, glass, stained glass, window, tutorial, diy, how to, class, beginners, advanced, technique

Id: NIz0yHAjBwQ

Length: 44min 54sec (2694 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 29 2020