Grozing iron fun

Kendrick (THL Kendrick Cameron) made me two awesome grozing irons for my glass work. One is going to Lady Moll and I'm keeping the other, and hopefully we will demonstrate them during our glass cutting class at Pennsic.

I have previously written of the grozing iron I made, poorly, for A&S work. To compare, this one is MUCH easier, almost effortless to use. My "dremel" iron was much narrower and took more wrist force to chew into the glass. This is proper stock with a wider gripping face and more weight. I also noticed this generates a fair cloud of glass dust! Use under proper ventilation, outdoors, and/or wearing an appropriately-rated respirator!!

A quick video of me using my grozing iron:

Homebrew Lightbox

I've been asked a few times about building lightboxes. For ease of reference I'm putting my directions here. They tend to be pricey, in my experience, but I built mine cheaply in a college dorm and have never felt the need to upgrade (the want, yes, the need? No.)

It's not pretty but it IS strong enough for me to lean on the surface while I work and portable enough for me to haul to events and classes!

Two 1"x6"x4' "standard" boards - 3.49 each.
3-4 "24"x30" Clear Glass Sheet" -
1 2" aluminum corner bracket (Optional - I use it for aligning/holding the surface)
1 Sheet of plexiglass (lexan, etc).
1+ fluorescent "kitchen light" at Walmart (I use two 12" and 1 18", models that chain off one another)
1 white garbage bag
Mirror shards/aluminum foil (Optional)

Cut, or have your lumber yard cut, the two boards in half so you have 4 boards of 2' length. Assemble them into a box (I chose a "pinwheel" format where the end of one board butts the side of another). Once sturdy, if desired attach the corner bracket to one corner for aligning the surface. Place aluminum foil or mirror pieces along the bottom to reflect light, if desired. Place the light(s) inside the box and run the cord under the edge to your wall outlet. Place one glass sheet on the top. Cover with a garbage bag (can be folded in half or cut open depending on how bright you need). Place the rest of the glass on top, then the plexiglass sheet. The glass provides strength and the plexiglass protection (for all those times your glasscutter goes right off the edge of the piece you are working). Turn on the lights and you are ready to go!

Because of the location of my outlets beneath and behind my work benches, I bought a remote controlled power strip (~$15 I think) at Menards. This lets me turn on my lightbox (and by extension my grinder and soldering iron) without climbing around on the floor beneath my work benches. You know, where all the glass dust and shards fall. I strongly recommend them!

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The Putty Party

A few years ago I learned a great shortcut. But first, dramatic tension!

I've wanted to try and make thumb wax for a long time. There is a recipe in Elskus and another in Isenberg ("How to Work in Stained Glass", third edition, my modern glass bible). Thumb wax is used to hold glass pieces onto a glass easel or lightbox for test viewing or while painting.

Elskus' recipe is simple: a quarter pound of beeswax and a teaspoon of venice turpentine. The one given in Isenberg is considerably more complicated, calling for a significant amount of beesewax, a pound of cornstrach, "sweet oil" (olive oil), venice turpentine, and resin. The recipe given, below, must make enough for Tiffany's studio at it's most productive. I cut everything into a 1/6 proportion and still ended up with a lot of thumb wax.

Thumb wax (from Anita/Seymour Isenberg's How to Work in Stained Glass, 3rd edition, P. 188)
1 pound beeswax
1 pound cornstarch
4 ounces resin
7 ounces venice turpentine
1-3/4 ounce sweet oil (olive oil).

Melt the beeswax in double boiler, add the cornstarch one spoonful at a time. Then add resin, venice turps, and oil. Mix thoroughly.

Note that the above is the original recipe, not my reduced portions!

I asked my chef mother about setting up a double boiler. She suggested a good plastic bowl. Being a professional she has high grade bowls. I settled for gladware....

Hey, it doesn't melt...

I made Elskus' recipe first, beeswax and rosin. It's nice and simple to be sure.

The molten thumb wax, in it's cooling bowl

It took a small laboratories worth of scales and calculators to get some of those numbers converted and reduced. Here are the ingredients I used for the Isenbergs' recipe:

The mix being cooked

The two waxes finished, Isenberg on the left (the cornstarch makes it much lighter)

The waxes smell amazing. Beeswax gives off a honey scent when warmed. Venice turpentine is drawn from pine trees, and that is another favorite smell of mine. I also used pine resin. 

If you've never worked with venice turps, it's very messy. It gets on your hands and it wears off within an hour or two. Washing it off was impossible, though I probably don't have the right solvents.

The waxes, after being poured, are very solid. You rip out a chunk and start kneading it with your fingers and it becomes pliable. Unfortunately it leaves a definite coating of turps on your fingers as you use it. Elskus' recipe is much harder and takes more to make it pliable. Once it is warmed up, both seem to react similarly. I immediately had a suspicion that the wax would leave behind residue on the glass, if it's leaving it behind on my fingers. This is probably fine for glass you are going to fire (the wax will run or burn off) and should be fine for leaded glass, but I think this will be completely unacceptable for copper foil:

 Click the pictures to enlarge them. You will see on each piece or pieces a distinct residue of thumb wax.

This leads to my personal favorite thumb wax, something that seemed obvious to me when, in a pinch, I needed something to hold glass to my lightbox.

SILLY PUTTY

Ever since I was little I've loved Silly Putty. My parents have made it a point to give me an egg or two of it every Christmas as a gag gift.

I grabbed a handy egg one January when I needed to hold glass to my lightbox while I aggressively blended some matt paint. It worked wonderfully. No residue, easy to clean up, it's sat on top of one bottle or another in my studio for years.

I needed to trace a few bevels to make an accurate pattern of the gaps between. I turned to my silly putty to hold everything together.

There are two other alternatives that need to be discussed: Non-thumb wax (usually beeswax, kept in a crockpot-type thing and applied with an eyedropper). I didn't test it because I don't have room on my benches for a small potpourri pot to keep the wax hot and don't want to deal with clean up. I suspect it would be much more easily cleaned up but I question whether the wax would leave the glass clean. Beeswax is used to... well, wax a lot of things and it applies itself avidly.

I once tried plain candle wax. I don't recommend it. While melting a candle has a lot of benefits for ambiance and seems like it would be a good source, I found it very difficult to clean up; after scraping a lot of it off I had to soak the bevels in hot water and wipe them clean with a rag.

So, for my time and money, silly putty is where it's at. It's not going to hold pieces to a vertical easel, if that's how you choose to paint, but if you work on a lightbox like I do it's a great choice.

No more BS about Pb

A bit of an "aside." I've had the unpleasant experience of listening to several heated discussions on Facebook about lead safety. I've had multiple intelligent friends speak to me about concerns about their glasswork and non-glass friends worried about my health and safety.

I am impressionable when it comes to medical matters, so a heated discussion on a wonderful Facebook group for glass artists left me a bit paranoid. At the time I spent a bit of money to build a better ventilation system, researched lead safety extensively, and discussed it with everyone I knew. I had been made to believe, however briefly, that my love of glass was killing all of my loved ones who set foot in my house.

Not happening. Today's post is going to cover some lead safety "Fact or Crap" items.

The big Fact: The significant threat is ingestion, not inhalation.

Think of lead much like water. Is ice contributing to the humidity of your air (are you inhaling it?) Yes, technically. A tiny portion of the ice can sublimate straight into water vapor. But it's so little it's insignificant. Is liquid water sitting in a glass adding to your humidity? Yes, very slowly. If you want to raise the humidity in a room, how do you do it? A pot of boiling water works much better. Lead is little different... actually, MORE difficult than water.

Lead melts at 621.43 (°F). At that point it's equivalent to liquid water (as far as our inhalation of it). Lead doesn't boil until 3180 °F. We are quickly melting it and it cools and resolidifies. You aren't at a risk of inhaling lead fumes unless you are smelting it. If you solder and you see fumes/smoke fly in the air that is not solder, that is flux. Flux is often resin based (check your bottle and your MSDS) and/or a chemical formula that will not poison you. You CAN irritate your sinuses and lungs, and cough for a day or two (at least the brand I use, Old Masters, can't poison me unless I confuse it's blue color for Romulan Ale and take a swig).

Now, as you work on it you get it all over your hands. That's why you must wash your hands immediately after working. You want to get lead poisoning, lick your fingers. I've cast lead into cames now, it didn't generate fumes (and incidentally my stovetop could barely melt the lead).

Some of us paint, and we use lead-based paints. Like a lampworker or glassblower using frit/powder, it is more of a concern. However, the powdered pigment isn't like flour and so on. It's a "heavy" powder, filled with glass fluxes and heavy minerals. While it is a powder, I've noticed minimal "floating dust" when I opened the sealed jar. I take a palette knife's worth and put on a palette with no noticeable cloud. Of course then we promptly mix it with binders and mediums and such and it's never again in dust form. I do own a mask that I can wear if I am concerned (and I use it for my silver stain mixes, which DO like to make dust clouds). Otherwise... as rare as I actually mix a fresh batch of paint... it's not a serious concern for me.

Now, for three "real world" arguments. The owner of the local glass shop, a woman who is as generous with her knowledge as she is skilled at a workbench, discussed lead safety with me a few months ago after a Facebook thread made me panicky and I bought ducting to build a ventilation rig. She informed me that in 30+ years of doing stained glass she has occasionally had a blood lead level test run, and it has never shown anything abnormal.

In the aforementioned FB thread, the owner of a professional studio mentioned she had an employee once who did test for elevated lead. Turned out he hadn't been changing out of his work clothes at work, and had been driving home in them after being around soldering and lead 8 hours a day. THAT lead to an "elevated" level of blood lead! Not lead poisoning.

So, in an effort to maybe put this to bed, both for others and for my own paranoia, I just went to the hardware store three hours ago and bought a big pack of lead tests. Instant Lead Testing ("If it's red, There's lead!" it says. "If it's red, you dead!" I thought) by Lead Check. A pack of plastic tubes with two ampules you crush to mix the solution. You then apply it to surfaces and If It's Red(tm) You're gonna have a bad time, mmkay?

Test 1 - My computer desk. I do my pattern work on my computer and have been known to absentmindedly click print while working on glass. Oh, I also eat here and spend 10-16 hours a day near this desk. You can imagine why it was site number 1. I dumped yellow testing liquid all over the desk, several important keys, and the left button of my mouse. Not a hint of red.

Test 2 - Other common surfaces in my house. After all, as some people keep trying to say to us, lead vapors are floating around to kill us and everyone we love. My couch? Nope. My dining room table? Nope. If you are unfamiliar with my home, it's an open floor plan, no walls. Couch armrest, kitchen counter, all ok.

Test 3 - What the heck, is this thing on? Solder and my (paint-encrusted) palette knife. Both came back brilliant dark red (oddly the solder took several seconds and the palette knife's droplets turned red practically as soon as I thought about applying). I guess they work!

Test 4 - My workbench. I tried the surface of my primary work bench. Yellow!
Test 5 - The plastic top of my lightbox. Tried several spots, all yellow!
Test 6 - The side of a plastic storage thing bordering my solder area. Yellow! This is about 1' from my soldering area.
Test 7 - The wall bordering my solder area. Permanent yellow staining of the paint, a foot from my soldering area.
Test 8 - The steel coil holder for my soldering iron, less than 1" away from the hot tip of the iron when it's on. YELLOW.
Test 9 - Dragging the thing through every cranny and coil above the soldering iron in that holder. FINALLY got some pink.... at the opening of the holder, which I hit every time I put the iron away without looking right at it. I guess that makes sense.


Edit: Test 10 - Tested the ceiling above my soldering area in several spots on a 2' line above the bench. YELLOW.

So, in short: Don't smelt lead from ore, don't lick your fingers, don't confuse your gin and tonic with your flux and wash your hands, kids!

A&S Day... something: Casting Cames

My last planned obstacle: casting lead cames to use. I've been trying to get a mold to work for a while now. Soapstone would be much easier, I think, but the documentation I have is after the period of my panel. The documentation I have from before it says the molds should be either iron or wood. There is no way I can forge an iron came mold, so wood it is.

A quick note on terminology, as I was taught and use. The two broader surfaces of the came's "H" that are visible are leaves. The lead portion connecting them, which is directly between the pieces of class and cannot be seen, is the heart. 

A less quick note on safety: Lead (and other heavy-metal) poisoning almost always happens because of ingestion, not inhalation. If you get a whiff of fumes while soldering and it irritates your nose or gives you a headache, it's because of the flux compounds (which generally are not serious, but check the MSDS for your flux). Think of lead like water. If you have a cup of water, is it billowing steam in your face? No, it's in liquid form. Even if you heat the water a bit, its warm or hot water. It is quite possible to heat lead and not generate lead fumes. If you are boiling the lead, then you have a problem! At the hottest setting of my stovetop I could barely melt the lead. Still, I ran the vent hood on high. I believe this process is very analogous to soldering (which is melting lead), and soldering is pretty safe for a hobbyist. I know professionals with decades of stained glass experience who do not have elevated blood lead levels. A little research indicates that the temperature at which lead generates fumes is 800-1000 degrees hotter than the melting temperature during casting. That being said, a hot plate outside will not do you wrong, either. Remember that any tool or container you use for working with lead is contaminated and must be washed. If, like me, you use a pan on the stove do not reuse the pan for food. I highly doubt you could get it clean enough.

I started with some wooden blocks that I believe are intended as part of crown molding. At the hardware store I verified they were relatively flush when squeezed together (such as by a clamp).

At first I tried free-hand carving the grooves. That sort of worked but I realized it was going to be impossible to keep them lined up the whole length without the leaf-grooves being wider than I wanted.

Going back to primary sources provided an answer. Soaking string in paint, laying them out, and then pressing the other board onto the first. This would create two sets of lines that should line up again. I found this to be fairly difficult, however, because I was trying to keep the lines a uniform distance, and the thick yarn made a fairly imprecise line to then follow. Not to mention it rolled a bit when I was trying to line up the edges of the block too (probably unnecessary).

 This view of the clamped mold shows the difficulty I had with the period method.

I ended up using a precise rule and measuring in an inch from the edge of the block. I made a line, moved over about 3/8" and made another line. The idea was to provide a common reference point (the block edge) and, if my measurements were accurate, everything should line up.

I then used a handsaw to "connect" the lines on either end. This ended up more difficult than I initially anticipated because of the wood I used. It has a slight curve, so sawing the ends was easy but it took some patience to get the grooves in the center.

The boards after the grooves were sawn.

Another view

I had a mold for the leaves, but I needed to remove a little of the wood between the two grooves to put the heart between them. I tried several tools and didn't find an "easy" one to make this painless. First I tried wood carving chisels, which did almost nothing (they are a cheap set). Then I tried the thin edge of a large file, with minimal results. I then wrapped sandpaper around that thin edge and tried again with some progress. The only sandpaper I had available was relatively fine, however, so I think that impacted it.

Finally I used a set of smaller files, where I could use the crosscut broad surfaces, and they worked better than anything. I sat during a Blackhawks game and filed away material until I could feel a distinct difference. A bright light provided a good test as well:

When my former protege-brother (he was elevated, there was no falling out) taught me to cast with lead-free pewter, he taught me to use an electric crucible popular with sportsmen for making lead sinks. Another protege-brother had said that a cast iron skillet works just as well in a pinch. I purchased a cast iron skillet with nice little pour spouts for this purpose (If anyone comes over for breakfast I promise not to reuse it!). I placed a bit of scrap came into it and fired it up. And waited. And waited. Eventually, with the fire turned up as high as it would go without the igniter clicking, it worked.

Now, note that what I'm using for this is scrap and cast-off cames, usually heavily oxidized. The piece above was clipped from my "good" spool. Lightly oxidized, it is silver and pretty. Once I saw it would work, I threw in my much dirtier scrap pile:

As soon as I tipped the pan a little a lot of the above lead pooled together. The impurities are fairly visible and many "colors" appeared as time went on.

I couldn't take pictures of the actual pouring because at this point I required speed, accuracy, and two hands.

The top of my mold with some over-flow. It took less lead to fill it than I anticipated.

The bottom of the mold. I had set it on a block of soapstone so as to protect the surface of my stove from molten lead. 

Prying the mold halves apart was often a bit of work, and the first time it required an implement or two to assist. The results were somewhat ugly, though identifiable to me. The pictures may be hard to see because of how shiny the came was. It washed out the "depth" I think.

I immediately remelted the lead and tried again. I know that slight alignment changes can have big effects.

Much more identifiable. The heart did not fill in near the top, but there was a usable portion from this casting. I figured the mold might "burn in" a little and remelted this again.

This was my third or fourth attempt. I need to call it a night, so I've stopped here for the moment. Each casting has turned out better results than the one before it. I kept the came above, there is a section about 2" long that is usable, and I have 1" square pieces that will gladly take this piece of came! It's not much, but it's a successfully cast came from a wooden mold.

2014 A&S Faire, "Day" 5

Well, the panel isn't going to be done in time for Midlands tomorrow. I am quite a bit saddened by that, but it's for the best. I spent 20 minutes looking for the documentation I needed for a shortcut I was going to take (and it is totally period, but it's still a shortcut) so I could save two kiln firings and try to make it happen. I decided it was best to not do it, make it the way I wanted, and HOPEFULLY send it with someone to Pentamere in a few weeks. That way I can still enter it at Kingdom.

Anyway, it's in the kiln firing right now. I've applied one layer of grey mat to the pieces, and removed the vines and ivy leaves:

After I fire them all I will repeat it with a second coating overall, so there is no clear glass and two tones of grey. I'm slightly tempted to pick out highlights again, and have three tones of grey, accept the deviation from the "co-geo-contemporaneous" panels. Three levels of shading is period, but I don't know that it was ever used for grisailles.

Using wine as a vehicle for the paint is fascinating. I am using a somewhat sweet white wine as a vintner friend suggested (specifically a moscato, very specifically the sparkling moscato from Cooper's Hawk Winery). The glass is sticky as a result. The paint is hard to scrub out; I'm not certain if that is because of the wine or if I inadvertently added more gum arabic than usual. I suspect the wine because Elskus mentions using table sugar as a binder. I imagine the sweetness of the wine could be introducing the additional grip. Because it's what was more local, I'm going to try a test batch of paint with cider instead of wine, though that isn't documented in any of the period sources. It makes sense and I can imagine a Norman glazier using it happily.

In order to scrub the pieces out I'm having to dip my hog bristle scrub into wine. It's really more like I'm rewetting the paint and removing it with a paper towel most of the time, where as with water I usually brush the dry dust off. If I remember correctly vinegar is described as giving a hard protective shell to the paint that can resist water (and save on firings). This seems to have a similar effect. I'm also glad it's a little cold for bugs, yet; I think plenty of them would be interested in the sugar. At Pennsic I will likely need to paint with vinegar (citable) or forego it for water. The third documentable item in Theophilus is urine, which I don't intend to try soon.

I'm somewhat relieved that I'm missing Midlands tomorrow; as I go I discovered a few pieces that were painted incorrectly. At least one, a corner, I was talked into leaving alone. Two pieces ended up with no ivy leaves, however, and they stand out when taken as a whole. After I get the shadings done I think I will go back over some of the pieces and strengthen lines, add in missing leaves, etc.

Pieces with highlights and some without (yet). Ignore the blotchiness, it's excess paint on the "table" and not actually blotchy paint on the glass

A close up of the pieces being fired right now

A&S Faire Project, post 4... and porphyry!

Finished cutting the glass for my panel, got the key lines painted on as well. The first half is firing right now. Unfortunately looking at the picture I see a problem and I'll have to redo one of the pieces heh.

Showing some of the blue pieces in place

Key lines painted in

I decided to try and freehand paint it all, which is weird for me. I ALWAYS trace. It was fun.

Today I got two books in and a new sample of porphyry. Fortunately this looks like "the right stuff!"

The original pieces I bought look like they were intended for countertops or something:

The surface was completely smooth and didn't grind very well.

The new stuff is more like the color of "Imperial porphyry" and it arrived in rough chunks that do grind quite well. 

Finally....carving molds is difficult!