The Solar Max
It only makes sense that any stained glass artist would end up with years of accumulation of beautiful glass. And I put this glass to good use.
Almost six feet tall all said and told. Okay more like five eight:)
Some design work straight onto the shower door, a couple of tubes (well more like twelve) of silicone glue, and an assortment of glass. If the pieces of glass are too large I particularly enjoy throwing them on the studio floor for the perfect chaos design. Or get a glass cutter from any stained glass shop and some hardware store sells them too. Scoring glass is easy... you just drag the cutter across it until a line forms and them tap it and it will break along the score. More details on this on the net or email me. Once you have scored the glass it has to be tapped and be broken right then because it will "heal itself if you don't Other pieces I custom cut very carefully with the diamond band-saw.( It doesn't hurt to have some really heavy duty sandpaper on hand to smooth off the rough edges on the glass, it makes it safer to work with.)
After a while though you just get a feel for it and almost never get cut. The combination of the two is very inspiring to me. Just draw your design onto the side of the glass you will not be gluing onto, it washes off easily when you are finished with the piece.
Spread the glue evenly onto the piece of glass you want to seal down.Then after all the pieces of glass are sealed into place on the shower doors, or clear piece of glass or whatever (f you buy a clear sheet of glass ask for double strength) the glue needs to cure for at least 24 hours (desert time.) Then there's a bit of fuss and muss with a single edged razor which involves getting stray glue from in between the pieces.
This will be important later when it comes time to grout. Grouting just ain't no big deal at all, you just slop it on nice and liberal, it looks a terrible mess at first but just make sure you have plenty of grout between the pieces of glass and that it feels smooth to the touch.
I prefer to do all my work barehanded as this is the only way I can really feel where I am on the piece. I have never cut myself doing this but you do have to be a little careful. Once the grout is really just all over the place you can smooth off the excess with your fingers. After about another 24 hours, again we're talking desert humidity which is usually zero, you can start to wash the piece down with rags soaked in water. This takes a bit of patience but not to worry, the grout will not stick to your glass and can always be dealt with one way or another. In the end if you are a real perfectionist anur glass has fissures or tiny cracks (and it all does) that have picked up some grout you can get those out with a small sharp tool. Just be careful not to scratch the glass. I use my fingernails more often than not. As the final step to this part after another couple of days of good drying time wash the whole thing down again and scrub with a soft brush. At this point it will probably be perfect but of course you have been staring at it for so long you will see every tiny flaw so\allow one more day of picking and preening:)
The grout can be painted any colour you want. I have experimented with this quite a lot. Starting with white grout you will find that any quality ACRYLIC paint will create an intense colour effect. (Only paint the grout after it is completely dry.) Of course they do sell special grout colour for triple the price and it sucks. Just get the acrylic, it works much better. This would be one of the final steps of the piece, painting the grout is easy because once again no worries as to how you go about it, any acrylic that gets on the glass will not permanently adhere. However if you do leave it all a mess overnight the acrylic will be more difficult to get off the glass, so again we use the one hour rule of thumb for drying.
If you live in Florida take a vacation to the Bahamas and check back later when you get around to it. No seriously in humid climates if you are keeping the piece in a dry area somewhere indoors just triple the drying time. Check it with your fingers, if it feels wet it is not dry...lol.
Oh and I was saying, I have tried just about every colour and black is by far the more beautiful and adds to the stained glass effect. Black is just best, it grounds the piece, the glass in the piece of course does all the work really with light and reflection and general dazzling display. The grout is only there to provide a frame of reference and I have found coloured grout to distract from that.
If you are creating your mosaic to be outdoors as I was, just for safety's sake I put four coats of marine varathane top and bottom on that sucker. After all that work I didn't want anything going wrong, and marine varathane (available at any hardware store) is the good stuff.
My particular piece survived some pretty knarly desert hail. Now in Missouri it has survived hail, tornadoes, earthquakes, and fall pecan missles;)
