Doug, It's been pretty quiet here too. I don't know why but I always find that April is the slowest month of the year. I tell myself that it's just tax season - having to reckon up with Uncle Sam makes everybody feel too broke to get their broken stained glass fixed - much less order new windows. An...

Dave, I'm wondering if the kind of glass you're chipping makes a difference. I recently tried chipping Restoration Glass made by Schott and it worked better than anything I'd tried before. It's machine drawn - not float glass - and I think it's much "softer" than regular glass. Not all gla...

I realize that this is an old thread but I've been looking into the question of getting the Angel Gilding to go right to the edge of the glass. The secret is to pour on more tin - even let it run over the edge some. You might have a bit more cleaning to do on the face of the glass when you're done b...

Well, Doug, those photos are very beautiful. I think you have a great longing for the past and a wonderful appreciation for the patina of time. I also think that the past is only really good when you don't have to live there any more. David's style was radically new in his day. The guys who sponsore...

Doug, It was indeed a spot from another era and it will be missed. It was also still a very profitable venture, they say, but the family just got tired of running it. Now they are going to go in for private catering only. Who can tell what folks will do. Now if you really want to see some great - or...

Yesterday was the last day we could have met for lunch at the restaurant where Rawson and Evans had lunch. Berghoff's in Chicago has closed after 120 years of serving the best German cuisine in town. I thought you should know. The word is that the bar is still open - I hope this is true. And to thin...

Joe, No one else answered so I thought I'd stick my neck out and then other folks can jump in and tell us how they do it - what programs they use and why. I learned to design stained glass patterns on the computer with Generic CADD 6.0 about 20 years ago. When I finally got a plotter I was thrilled ...

Larry, Wonderful as always - and I would love to know how the photography is done. Just any old hints would be most welcome. I especially love the Art Deco Mirror - the design, the execution, the antiquing and the photograph. Nice to see the copper getting some play. Have you tried coppering over a ...

William, I never met Rick either though I spoke with him on the phone several times - asking yet more questions about Angel Gilding. Always kind and helpful to rank outsiders like me. I wanted to ask people here if they had looked at another Dover reprint called Pattern and Design with Dynamic Symme...

Sorry, I wanted to add about the heated tables. They were very common in Rawson and Evans day, but the formula for "hot silver" is very different from the formula for cold pouring silver. There is not only no need to build a big steam heated table for hand poured silver but you get bad res...

Pat, We (my husband, the chemist, and I) have been doing experiments exactly along the lines you suggest. The big silver mirror guys these days all assume that the silver will be sprayed on the glass and so they make the solutions with a very fast reducer which makes it very difficult to get an even...

WOW! And thanks.

WOW! And thanks.

I would suggest that you do the matte centers with etching creme as Larry suggests first. Then clean the entire piece as clean as it would need to be for mirroring and let it dry. Then if you mask over the non-gold parts with vinyl you can gild and back up the gold areas pretty easily. Remove the ma...

Just to let you know - I thought the glass hangers Rick used to have were such a great idea that I have been making them myself and they are now available at http://www.angelgilding.com . Two styles, two sizes and four colors/metals. They are one way to hang glass without spending big bucks for a fr...

Kelly, He is wonderful - thanks for posting the link. I love the skull and chains - really wicked. I also would like to know why the egret (or is it a heron?) is such a popular bird for sand blasted designs. A person sees five sand blasted egrets (or are they herons?) for every swan or robin. Maybe ...

Larry,

I think a lot of us are following this carefully - great work - well taught - and much appreciated.

Larry,

I think a lot of us are following this carefully - great work - well taught - and much appreciated.

Hey Dave, Thanks for the plug!! I don't stock the spray guns but I do live just up the road from Paasche Headquarters and I would be glad to arrange shipping etc for anyone who is interested - more in the hopes of selling the silver than making much on the guns. Paasche has excellent equipment. You ...

Kelly, Some of the best histories I've found has been Decorative Glass Techniques by Arthur Louis Duthie written in 1908 and republished by the Corning Museum in association with Dover Books in 1982 - ISBN 0-486-24270-6. Duthie was an Englishman from Leeds and has many great tips and discussions. At...

Yes, we do have mineral lights - they just haven't been posted on the website yet. John, please phone or e-mail me if you want one. They're mostly used for Angel Gilding but I think I remember that they were mentioned with regard to acid etching on the the Engliish web site that Doug refered to. Tha...

Felix,

That is a remarkable design - very carefully thought out. I'm wondering - is it for sand blasting or glue chipping or both? Maybe you could tell us more about how it works. Is it 95" long (almost 8 feet) or is that the height? Why so many lights? Please explain.

I'm sure you're right, Pat, but I thought that some of those fine lines might have been engraved with a copper wheel.

Well, its amazing - and gorgeous. I wonder if you could describe the colors the copper takes on over the toned acid sections. Are the different shades as pale as they look in the photo? It looks really pink whereas copper on clear glass in normally darker - and, I think, a little more purple. I woul...

Kenneth, All the traditional methods stated out as experiments. Who was the first person to pour animal glue on sand blasted glass? What kind of a nutty idea is that? I have found that Angel Gilding does not work on acrylic and that it does work perfectly on Lexan and PETG. So does silver. As Danny ...

I learned a lot from your questions, Keith, and did some experiments I would not have done if you hadn't asked. If folks didn't ask new questions - and post their questions and replies - then we'd all stay stuck in the same old rut. How fun is that?

ooops. Anyway - Uline.com item numbers S-9919 and S-9920.

UPS Ground. You can find the boxes at http://www.uline.com/ProductDetail.asp?model=S-9919[url][/url]

The soapy quality of our tin (and Peacock's) is caused by adding a wetting agent to the tin concentrate which breaks the surface tension in the water and allows the tin to stick more evenly to the glass. The wetting agent we use in the Tin for Gold doesn't foam very much but it helps to get an even ...

Russ, A while back I paid big money for some boxes that had been specifically designed for shipping glass. They were made of extra stiff cardboard and had three layers of dense soft foam rubber inside - each about 1 inch thick and exactly the size of the box. The directions that came with the box to...