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Every now and then we get a piece of tempered glass that's the wrong size so it gets slated for the dumpster... wrong... it get's made into another glass sign and hopefully has a long enjoyable life. Well, that's what this piece was and about 15 to 20 second after I was told it was trash I started making it into a United Cigar Stores sign. I sure love the flexibility of those vector files! So after a bit of time this is what I came up with!
I glue chipped the background of the scroll work and the letter centers. Then using the hot glue dam method, I angel gilded the scrollwork gold and silvered the letters when I silvered over the gold angel gild. Then the bright lines were painted (by hand), a split shade added to the lettering along with a cast shadow. I then did a mottled brown background and green border (the green is painted in different shades to give the appearance of beveled glass. After that was done I crafted the frame from some plywood and molding I got from Lowe's Home Center. The finished size is 30" x 88" ....in case you need a visual...
one man's trash is another man's treasure?
the piece looks great, but the trash story got to me, man (I love you, man)
for those of you that attended the butler workshop here stuck in Lodi, do you remember the window across the street "taste of heaven" with the two tone gild with matte centers? the new microbrew had the landlord yank her less than 12 month lease and expanded in her space. drove up the morning just after the local glass shop took the window panes out with the gilded inscription. called 'em up and asked where the glass is, he contacted the driver and they already left the trash dump....what? throw away perfrectly good, reusable window panes?
great job, Lar, nothing goes to the dumpster, man.....
That is really beautiful, Larry.
The blue split shade really sets off the silver lettering nicely. It's hard to tell from the photo but I'll bet the brown mottled background also works well with the blue shadow and the green border. Love to see it in person.
I may be voicing my ignorance here but I didn't think you could glue-chip tempered glass. Just this morning I submitted some glass samples to an architect and told I him that we could not glue chip tempered glass. Where safety glass has been an issue I've approached it 2 ways. One is to do the chipping first and then have it tempered (risky). Another approach has been to do the work on laminated glass.
At any rate, I was under the impression that if you glue chip glass that is already tempered there is a good chance that the piece will shatter in the chipping process.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
It is possible to chip tempered glass. However, the chip doesn't come out as crisp as with standard annealed glass. It has more of a leathery feel to it. I would always prefer to chip on annealed glass, but I don't like throwing out these big pieces of tempered when I can have some fun with them. If I have a customer that needs tempered glue chip, I'll have it tempered after chipping. I usually try to leave a nominal clear border (1/8") on the glass so the chipping doesn't go all the way to the edge. I've done quite a few like that and all of them have made it through the tempering process. -LW
Thanks for the info, Larry. I think I'll try some chipping on some tempered glass just to see how it does.
I realize I've taken your post in a different direction from where you started but here is one last thought:
In my limited experience I haven't had any problems with tempered glass going through the tempering process either, I just know there is a certain percentage that will break. The 1/8" border is good advice.
I was doing several pieces of glass for a home with clear laminated glass and a chipped/etched design. Because I went all the way to the edge with the chipping, 2 of the pieces had a crack that started at the edge and ran side to side. I learned my lesson and when I re-did those pieces I left a border all the way around the edge.
The hot melt glue dam is a method used to isolate an area for solution gilding. You could encircle just a word on a sign with the hot glue and solution gild that word rather than the whole glass. In this case I encircled the words and angel gilded everything outside the circle, keeping the angel gild solution off the lettering. After angel gilding it is typically backed up with silver. So when I silvered over the angel gilding, I silvered over the letters at the same time. It's basically getting 2 tones out of a single process. When dry, the glue dam is pealed off. Avoid cheesey hobby type glue guns. I use a higher end 3M gun and the amber glue.
...ah yes...laminated glass...fragile as the wings of the butterfly.
I did a complex sandblast pattern on laminated glass then gilded an inscription just to find a nice crack all away across the next morning...I dislike lami... -LW
Looks awesome!!
-LW
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads