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machine_dove at 08:09am on 05/03/2004
machine_dove at 08:09am on 05/03/2004My fingers look like they've been gnawed on by a wolverine. Not pretty. Stained glass class was last night, so I had to grind all of my glass. I quickly came to the conclusion that a) grinding sucks, and b) I suck at grinding. To avoid the whole "chewed fingers" thing we wrapped something that looked like green tape around our thumbs, index, and middle fingers, since those were the ones that would be pushing up against the edges of the glass. I apparently need to wrap my right pinky, too, since that's all torn up.
I do have yet another hidden talent - I am a "frit thrower," one who manages to get clouds of glass frit (like dust, but not) all over everywhere when I grind - my pieces of glass looked like they were coated in chalk, my hands and arms were covered, my shirt and hair were dusted with it...yea, safety glasses are a Good Thing.
Anyway, it took me about two and a half hours, but I got my entire piece ground. Not very well - the pieces don't fit together nearly as tightly as they should, but that's one of the benefits of doing copper-foil stained glass, as opposed to lead caning - copper foil is much more forgiving of gaps and loose pieces. A little extra solder and those gaps are filled. I'm unsure of how round it's going to be, and the colors don't work together nearly as well as I had hoped, but I'm overall happy with it thus far. Everything I have to do from here on out is the easy stuff - foil and solder.
I'm rather sore all over today, too - I managed to fling myself with great force at the floor last night while bringing in the mail, and I ended up with odd bruises in odd places, and a slightly wrenched shifting shoulder. Whoops.
More work today. I think I'm going to skip the weekly meeting so I can actually get something accomplished instead of having more things assigned to me. Yay!
I do have yet another hidden talent - I am a "frit thrower," one who manages to get clouds of glass frit (like dust, but not) all over everywhere when I grind - my pieces of glass looked like they were coated in chalk, my hands and arms were covered, my shirt and hair were dusted with it...yea, safety glasses are a Good Thing.
Anyway, it took me about two and a half hours, but I got my entire piece ground. Not very well - the pieces don't fit together nearly as tightly as they should, but that's one of the benefits of doing copper-foil stained glass, as opposed to lead caning - copper foil is much more forgiving of gaps and loose pieces. A little extra solder and those gaps are filled. I'm unsure of how round it's going to be, and the colors don't work together nearly as well as I had hoped, but I'm overall happy with it thus far. Everything I have to do from here on out is the easy stuff - foil and solder.
I'm rather sore all over today, too - I managed to fling myself with great force at the floor last night while bringing in the mail, and I ended up with odd bruises in odd places, and a slightly wrenched shifting shoulder. Whoops.
More work today. I think I'm going to skip the weekly meeting so I can actually get something accomplished instead of having more things assigned to me. Yay!
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