Stained Glass
I started playing around with stained glass my senior year of high school. We were assigned to work on a project based on some literature. Not feeling in the mood to write a ten page essay on colour symbolism, I instead concentrated on the artistic portion. The novel dealt with light and dark - namely only being able to perceive light after accepting the darkness we all have within. To that end, I built a box that would unlatch only when both darkness and light were introduced. After exploring in my garage, I discovered all my mum's old stained glass supplies - a proper medium to play with light! I kept practicing after the class project was done, and have made a few other pieces since then.
Light Lock Box (the first section of this was written at the time for an instructable I never finished)
This project started as a school assignment, for AP Literature and Composition, based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness . We were supposed to create an interesting container to hold a "magazine" of poetry (Villanelle, Free Verse, Shakespearian, Haiku and Tanka) in addition to an analytical essay on the use of colour.
Needless to say, I went a little overboard. But hey! I was in need of a good project... Especially considering that pile of work for college applications. Yikes!
The box, a 4"x4" base and 13" high, is made of four different kinds of glass bonded together using copper foil. There is an arduino duemilanove running down in the base, controlling a servo actuated locking mechanism for the lid, in addition to four status LED's. Two photo-resistors sense changes past a programmed luminosity threshold - down to darkness for the left, and up to light for the right.
The idea was to integrate one of the levels of meaning in Conrad's book into the device, namely - in order for one to choose the light over the dark, they must first come to know the darkness within their hearts. Know the dark and the light, and you'll get into the box! Nifty huh?
Needless to say, I went a little overboard. But hey! I was in need of a good project... Especially considering that pile of work for college applications. Yikes!
The box, a 4"x4" base and 13" high, is made of four different kinds of glass bonded together using copper foil. There is an arduino duemilanove running down in the base, controlling a servo actuated locking mechanism for the lid, in addition to four status LED's. Two photo-resistors sense changes past a programmed luminosity threshold - down to darkness for the left, and up to light for the right.
The idea was to integrate one of the levels of meaning in Conrad's book into the device, namely - in order for one to choose the light over the dark, they must first come to know the darkness within their hearts. Know the dark and the light, and you'll get into the box! Nifty huh?
Other Works
The first thing I made after the box. What is it? I don't know. It looks sort of like a headdress to me. The clear portions were made out of some scavenged material from a scanner - which actually turned out to be some sort of acrylic.
Yep, same colour scheme. A dragonfly for a gift exchange with some seventh graders in our Lit class (12th grade).
This piece is on an idea in a stained glass book I found. I drew up the pattern in open office, printed it and cut out the pieces, traced them onto the glass, then cut and ground down to size. The image doesn't really capture all the different textures in each colour of glass. It does cast some interesting shadows!
The veins in this leaf were made with individual strands of some 24 gauge stranded wire. The effect when seen from the side opposite the wires is pretty good!
The dragon... No pictures yet! It's still in progress. All the pieces are cut and foiled, though only partway soldered together.
Notes
- I use a lubricated cutting wheel, grozing pliers, and a diamond sander for most of my work.
- It's really helpful to keep a spray bottle full of water around for any grinding to knock glass dust out of the air.
- Make sure the soldering iron is really beefy to get hot enough, since that copper tape is going act like a great big heatsink.
- Lots and lots and lots of flux. Really, get some flux (I use a paste). Also use flux for all your electronics. Also did I mention flux?
- When making your first cut, just man up and do it. I spent about half an hour pansying about on a foot long, straight cut because I didn't believe the score could possibly work. Just break the piece!
- Push the cutting tool away from you when scoring.
- I do my really curved cuts in a few goes, then grind the last bit.
- You can grind holes into the middle of a glass piece!
- It's really helpful to keep a spray bottle full of water around for any grinding to knock glass dust out of the air.
- Make sure the soldering iron is really beefy to get hot enough, since that copper tape is going act like a great big heatsink.
- Lots and lots and lots of flux. Really, get some flux (I use a paste). Also use flux for all your electronics. Also did I mention flux?
- When making your first cut, just man up and do it. I spent about half an hour pansying about on a foot long, straight cut because I didn't believe the score could possibly work. Just break the piece!
- Push the cutting tool away from you when scoring.
- I do my really curved cuts in a few goes, then grind the last bit.
- You can grind holes into the middle of a glass piece!