Stained Glass?
 

Anybody here into stained glass for a hobby? If so, can you give me the run down regarding how expensive it is and if there is a long learning curve for it or not.

I did the whole candle/ soap thing for about a year and half. It was fun, but got boring after awhile, not to mention my sinuses couldn't take the constant abuse from all the fragrance oils and such.

Need something new to master.

Thanks!

I've taken a beginner's stained glass class, and really enjoyed it alot!

As far as I can tell, the biggest expense would be a grinding bench- it's a wet grinder so you can grind down the sharp edges of the glass. Other than that, the other materials seemed pretty cheap.

Glass cutter can be bought an any hardware store- they look kinda funky but once you get the hang of it they're easy to use. Pliers you probably already have in your house. Paper for drawing the pattern on (it's special paper) and special scissors for cutting out patterns (it cuts the pattern a little small to allot for the leading). Wrapping foil for the edges, solder and soldering iron, flux (to get the solder to flow), and of course the glass.

I would HIGHLY recommend taking a class or a workshop before you spend a lot of money on materials. That way, you'll know what you're getting into and someone will show you exactly how to do things. I only had the one class where I spent an afternoon making a glass hanging, but I feel like if I had all the tools in front of me I could do it again no sweat. However, I don't think I could have learned all I did just from a book- having someone there showing me what to do helped A LOT, especialy when it came to actually cutting the glass. There's an art to it.

As to long learning curve, I learned how to do it in an afternoon. Getting the glass cut just right, the solder flowing not too thick or thin, and the spacing of the glass pieces right is where I had a problem, but my piece was totally presentable for an afternoon's worth of learning. I'd probably become really good at it if I did it every day for a week or two. I wish I had the space and money to take it up as a hobby!

The grinder is one of the more expensive tools. However it isn't really a must have. I have a couple of them, but if you are careful enough at cutting, you can get by without one. Straight cuts like used in panel lamps don't usually need grinding at all.

Check the yellow pages for stain glass supply shops. My father-in-law used to buy his stuff from one that also gave free lessons. Saturday afternoons were free lesson days and they made their money selling the materials used in class.

I learned to do stained glass in an evening class offered at a local juco. It really isn't all that hard to do. I need to go clean out my SG bench in the shop and see what I can whip up one of these days. It has been a while.

BTW, don't buy glass at Hobby Lobby unless you have to. That glass tends to splinter and doesn't cut as well as better glass. Every cut I've ever had came from Hobby Lobby glass.

hmm, I like this idea, I've mulled it over myself in the past. It sounds like a rewarding hobby, I'll have to check into it because it would be great for the bathroom window!

Collect any old stain glass you can find. It's the real stuff.

Be sure to get a grinder, a dremel tool, several cutters, 2 irons (large and small). Before checking the online stores be sure to check ebay, there are sometimes really good deals.

Good grief...what's going on? Yet another thread that I am confident I have read somewhere else! I think I'm going crazy. :confused: :confused:

My mother did stained glass for a little while and I used to help her when I was a little girl. You might think that she was crazy letting a little girl do stained glass, but it really wasn't that hard once you learned how to do it safely.

Doing a course or learning from someone who knows how to do it is definitely a good idea, because when you start there are a lot of little tricks and things that it would take you ages to figure out yourself and will save you a lot of time, effort and pain!

One thing my mother commented on more than once was how difficult it was to find good glass without paying a lot of money. There seemed to be a limited supply, hobbyists were competitive over the glass, and it is expensive to ship... plus back then there was no Internet to look for suppliers easily.