Have a Biohazard Birthday

Happy Birthday to Drew, my youngest brother. His birthday was the 26 of September but this is the most timely I have given him a gift in maybe 10 years.

I wanted to make something appropriate but kind of evil looking. My mom was the one who came up with the biohazard symbol since Drew is a an engineer working in the environmental remediation field. His degree is in nuclear engineering but the radiation symbol is pretty boring. We agreed the biohazard symbol was much cooler.

Kelli was the one who suggested I use black as the background instead of using a clear or a light color. It worked perfectly.

Ask for a crab

Kenni from work asked for a crab. This is the result.

De Plane, De Plane !

A gift for my former Sgt, Richard Stouff, recently promoted to Lt. Now that he's not in my direct chain of command I can say that he's a class act without it sounding like brown-nosing.

He's a pilot, by the way. Thus the whole plane thing. It's not perfect but I think it came out okay for my first 3D piece. And it's a kaleidoscope but that doesn't photograph well.

Bedeviled by Bevels

Kelli likes crosses and she likes green (and her mom gave me lots of green glass) so I decided to surprise her with a stained glass cross. I picked a Celtic cross because it goes with the whole green theme plus I'm a fan of the Celts (the Irish ones not the Bostonians although, so long as Kobe Bryant is a Laker, them too I guess – but I digress).

It started with that bevel in the middle. See it? It's not elliptical, it's an oval. Although not idea I was working with what I had on hand.

What I didn’t expect was that I was going to screw it up so bad. Usually I solder the pieces upside down so that the front lines are cleaner. I didn't figure out that with the height of the bevel I couldn’t go that route until after I had tried to tack-solder the whole thing.

Crap. It was a mess. I had to rip it all apart and, much like a petulant child, I figured I was done with glass for today and maybe with this piece altogether since it would require unfoiling all the pieces then re-washing and drying and then refoiling to get it right. Blah!

After walking the dog, who reminded me I was ignoring her, I decided to put on my big girl's pants (or something much more masculine) and just start again.

Taking all the foil off is a big pain in the ass since you have to remove all of the old adhesive so that the new foil will stick properly. This is a time consuming, tedious deal. Did I mention that it's a pain in the ass?

After it was over I had a very dull Xacto blade which was replaced just the day before but the pieces were back to where I needed them.

The reason I like all these crafty hobbies is that they teach me patience and force me to slow down. This piece certainly has lived up to that expectation.

Incidentally this is a pretty big piece for a sun-catcher (9 1/2 inches) and with all the small interior pieces couldn’t possibly support its own weight so I got to solder support wire on the back of a piece for the first time.

Fun stuff.

Sugarbaby Stained Glass

It started with a picture of our dog as a puppy


Then, using Photoshop, I made a stained glass design (all rights reserved, thank you)

then I numbered the pieces (total pieces 57)



And traced it onto mylar



Then cut the mylar into pattern pieces



then I glued the pattern pieces to the glass as a guide to cutting the pieces (this is the way my mother in law works, I know other folks trace directly onto the glass using a lightbox or whatever but I'm new so I'm just doing what I know will work)



then cut and grind, cut and grind. I'm getting better at cutting so I don't have to grind nearly as much.
then foil all the pieces and assemble upside down


and then after soldering (inexpertly still, sigh) , washing, adding patina, then washing again


Next... The Who ?

we'll see

Stained Glass so far

Here's what I've done in the order I finished them.



The soldering is sloppy but I'm getting better. I'm at the literal bleeding edge of my abilities just doing basic stuff right now.

Oh yeah and that is Sharpie for the teeth of the skull. I couldn't quite pull off using wire and after burning myself twice trying I figured I'd just paint the spaces in. I think I'll be able to wash off the marker and fix it with real paint or some other way eventually. Skull version 2 will be both better and a little "darker." But that's for later.

I think I'll do Sugar Baby next. I managed to draw a very do-able design.

I have this huge "the Who" project in the works too.

I've tried to draw* a Jimi Hendrix design but it's proving much more difficult to get the face just right. He's got these little expressions that are hard to capture in bits and pieces and still be identifiable.

*by draw I mean trace using PhotoShop. I can't draw for beans.