01:19
Faizan
As I sit in my studio looking around at all the suncatchers,wall hangings and other stained glass items, I'm thinking about the history of stained glass. How did they cut glass? I know they didn't have copper foil way back when or a soldering iron. So how did they do it?
How did they cut it? Well after a little research I discovered that in Medieval times they used a red hot piece of iron that was drawn across the surface of the glass slowly in the generally desired shape. The glass was quickly put into water break it. The process was nothing short of amazing as the early glaziers followed a sketched cartoon for their window design. After using the red hot iron for cutting the glass to the required pieces, the pieces that had received painted lines and shadings were put into the kiln. The pieces were then fitted into the lead strips, then soldered together at junction points, then the installing of a bracing framework of iron called the armature. The coloring of glass was achieved in the melting pot, where metallic oxides were fused with the glass. The metallic ores, although at first crude and limited, ultimately produced admirable color variations. The glass, available only in small pieces, gave thereby a jewel like quality to the colors.
Simply amazing.
As for the making of the sheets of glass themselves, Making glass is a very ancient process, with archaeological evidence of glass making dating back to before 2500 BC.
Glass is made by fusing together some form of silica such as sand, an alkali such as potash or soda, and lime or lead oxide. The color is produced by adding a metallic oxide to the raw materials. The ingredients are then heated to like 2600F - then it's poured onto tin (almost like a huge cookie sheet) and it floats across the top of the tin (hence the term float glass) - sometimes the tin has a texture on it to texture the glass.
How did they cut it? Well after a little research I discovered that in Medieval times they used a red hot piece of iron that was drawn across the surface of the glass slowly in the generally desired shape. The glass was quickly put into water break it. The process was nothing short of amazing as the early glaziers followed a sketched cartoon for their window design. After using the red hot iron for cutting the glass to the required pieces, the pieces that had received painted lines and shadings were put into the kiln. The pieces were then fitted into the lead strips, then soldered together at junction points, then the installing of a bracing framework of iron called the armature. The coloring of glass was achieved in the melting pot, where metallic oxides were fused with the glass. The metallic ores, although at first crude and limited, ultimately produced admirable color variations. The glass, available only in small pieces, gave thereby a jewel like quality to the colors.
Simply amazing.
As for the making of the sheets of glass themselves, Making glass is a very ancient process, with archaeological evidence of glass making dating back to before 2500 BC.
Glass is made by fusing together some form of silica such as sand, an alkali such as potash or soda, and lime or lead oxide. The color is produced by adding a metallic oxide to the raw materials. The ingredients are then heated to like 2600F - then it's poured onto tin (almost like a huge cookie sheet) and it floats across the top of the tin (hence the term float glass) - sometimes the tin has a texture on it to texture the glass.
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