Stained glass work : a text-book for students and workers in glass

Front matter

THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS

SERIES OF TECHNICAL

HANDBOOKS EDITED

Chapter II

Cutting (elementary) — The Diamond — The Wheel — Sharpening — How to Cut — Amount of Force —

The Beginner’s Mistake — Tapping — Possible and Impossible Cuts — “Grozeing” — Defects of the Wheel — The Actual Nature of a “Cut” in Glass 33

Chapter III

Painting (elementary) — Pigments — Mixing — How to Fill the Brush — Outline — Examples — Industry—

The Needle and Stick — Completing the Outline . 56

xxiii

Contents CHAPTER IV

PAGE

Matting — Badgering — How to preserve Correctness of Outline — Difficulty of Large Work — Ill-ground Pigment — The Muller — Overground Pigment — Taking out Lights — “Scrubs” — The Need of a Master 72

Chapter V

Cutting (advanced)-— The Ideal Cartoon— The Cut-line— Setting the Cartoon — Transferring the Cut-line to the Glass — Another Way — Some Principles of Taste — Countercharging 83

Chapter VI

Painting (advanced) — Waxing-up — Cleanliness — Further Methods of Painting — Stipple — Dry Stipple — Film — Effects of Distance — Danger of Over- Painting — Frying 94

Chapter VII

Firing — Three Kinds of Kiln — Advantages and Disadvantages— The Gas-Kiln — Quick Firing — Danger — Sufficient Firing — Soft Pigments — Difference in Glasses — “Stale” Work — The Scientific Facts —

How to Judge of Firing — Drawing the Kiln . 105

Chapter VIII

The Second Painting — Disappointment with Fired Work — A False Remedy — A Useful Tool — The Needle — A Resource of Desperation — The Middle Course — Use of the Finger — The Second Painting — Procedure . . . . . . .118

XXIV

Chapter IX Page

Of Staining and Adding — Yellow Stain — Adding — Caution required in Use — Remedy for Burning — Uses of Adding — Other Resources of Stained Glass Work 129

Chapter X

Leading-Up and Fixing — Setting out the Bench — Relation of Leading to mode of Fixing in the Stone — Process of Fixing — Leading-Up Resumed — Straightening the Lead — The “Lathykin” —

The Cutting-Knife — The Nails — The Stopping- Knife — Knocking Up 133

Chapter XI

Soldering — Handling the Leaded Panel — Cementing — Recipe for Cement — The Brush — Division of Long Lights into Sections — How Joined when Fixed — Banding — Fixing — Chipping out the Old Glazing — Inserting the New and Cementing . 144

Chapter XIV Pagb

Of Perfection — In Little Things — Cleanliness — Alertness— But not Hurry — Realising your Conditions — False Lead-Lines — Shutting out Light — Bars —

Their Number — Their Importance — Precedence — Observing your Limitations — A Result of Complete Training — The Special Limitations of Stained Glass — Disguising the Lead-Line — No full Realism — No violent Action — Self-Effacement —

No Craft- Jugglery — Architectural Fitness founded on Architectural Knowledge — Seeing Work in Situ — Sketching in Glass — The Artistic Use of the Lead — Stepping Back — Accepting Bars and Leads — Loving Care — White Spaces to be Interesting— Bringing out the “ Quality ” of the Glass — Spotting and Dappling — “ Builders-Glazing ” versus Modern Restoring . . . .163

Chapter XV

A Few Little Dodges — A Clumsy Tool — A Substitute— A Glass Rack — An Inconvenient Easel — A Convenient Easel — A Waxing-up Tool —

An Easel with Movable Plates — Making the most of a Room — Handling Cartoons — Cleanliness — Dust — The Selvage Edge — Drying a “ Badger” — A Comment 182

Chapter XIX

Of General Conduct and Procedure — Amount of Legitimate Assistance — The Ordinary Practice — The Great Rule — The Second Great Rule —

Four Things to Observe — Art v. Routine — The Truth of the Case — The Penalty of Virtue in the Matter — The Compensating Privilege — Practical Applications — An Economy of Time in the Studio — Industry — Work “To Order” —

— Clients and Patrons — And Requests Reasonable and Unreasonable — The Chief Difficulty the Chief Opportunity — But ascertain all Conditions before starting Work — Business Habits — Order — Accuracy — Setting out Cartoon Forms — An Artist must Dream — But Wake — Three Plain Rules . 264

Chapter XX Appendix I

Some Suggestions as to the Study of Old Glass . . 308

APPENDIX II

On the Restoring of Ancient Windows . . *315

xxvii

APPENDIX III

PAGE

Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for Stained Glass — Examples for Painting — Examples of Drapery — Drawing from Nature — Ornamental

Design 321

Notes on the Collotype Plates . . . 327

The Collotype Plates 337

Glossary 369

Index 373

XXV111

PART I

Chapter I Introductory, And Concerning The Raw Material

You are to know that stained glass means pieces of coloured glasses put together with strips of lead into the form of windows ; not a picture painted on glass with coloured paints.

You know that a beer bottle is blackish, a hock bottle orange-brown, a soda-water bottle greenish-white — these are the colours of the whole substance of which they are respectively made.

Break such a bottle, each little bit is still a bit of coloured glass. So, also, blue is used for poison bottles, deep green and deep red for certain wine glasses, and, indeed, almost all colours for one purpose or another.

Intro-

ductory

Intro- Now these are the same glass, and ductory coloured in the same way as that used for church windows.

Such coloured glasses are cut into the shapes of faces, or figures, or robes, or canopies, or whatever you want and whatever the subject demands ; then features are painted on the faces, folds on the robes, and so forth — not with colour, merely with brown shading ; then, when this shading has been burnt into the glass in a kiln, the pieces are put together into a picture by means of grooved strips of lead, into which they fit.

This book, it is hoped, will set forth plainly how these things are done, for the benefit of those who do not know ; and, for the benefit of those who do know, it will examine and discuss the right principles on which windows should be made, and the rules of good taste and of imagination, which make such a difference between beautiful and vulgar art ; for you may know intimately all the processes I have spoken of, and be skilful in them, and yet misapply them, so that your window had better never have been made.

Skill is good if you use it wisely and for good end ; but craft of hand employed

3° foolishly is no mohre use to you tan swiftness of foot would be upon the broad road leading downwards — the cripple is happier.

A clear and calculating brain may be used for statesmanship or science, or merely for gambling. You, we will say, have a true eye and a cunning hand ; will you use them on the passing fashion of the hour — the morbid, the trivial, the insincere— or in illustrating the eternal truths and dignities, the heroisms and sanctities of life, and its innocencies and gaieties?

This book, then, is divided into two parts, of which the intention of one is to promote and produce skilfulness of hand, and of the other to direct it to worthy ends.

The making of glass itself— of the raw material — the coloured glasses used in stained-glass windows, cannot be treated of here. What are called “Antiques” are chiefly used, and there are also special glasses representing the ideals and experiments of enthusiasts — Prior’s “ Early English ” glass, and the somewhat similar “Norman” glass. These glasses, however, are for craftsmen of experience to use : they

Intro-

ductory

Intro- require mature skill and judgment in the

chietory using ; to the beginner, “ Antiques ” are

enough for many a day to come.

How to know the Right and Wrong Sides of a Piece of “Antique” Glass. — Take up a sheet of one of these and look at it. You will notice that the two sides look different ; one side has certain little depressions as if it had been pricked with a pin, sometimes also some wavy streaks. Turn it round, and, looking at the other side, you still see . these things, but blurred, as if seen through water, while the surface itself on this side looks smooth ; what inequalities there are being projections rather than depressions. Now the side you first looked at is the side to cut on, and the side to paint on, and it is the side placed inwards when the window is put up.

The reason is this. Glass is made into sheets by being blown into bubbles, just as a child blows soap-bubbles. If you blow a soap-bubble you will see streaks playing about in it, just like the wavy streaks you notice in the glass.

The bubble is blown, opened at the ends, and manipulated with tools while hot, until it is the shape of a drain-pipe ;

then cut down one side and opened out Introupon a flattening-stone until the round ductory pipe is a flat sheet ; and it is this stone which gives the glass the different texture, the dimpled surface which you notice.

Some glasses are “ flashed ” ; that is to say, a bubble is blown which is mainly composed of white glass ; but, before blowing, it is also dipped into another coloured glass — red, perhaps, or blue — and the two are then blown together, so that the red or blue glass spreads out into a thin film closely united to, in fact fused on to, and completely one with, the white glass which forms the base; most “Ruby” glasses are made in this way.

Chapter II

Cutting (elementary) — The Diamond — The Wheel- Sharpening — How to Cut — Amount of Force — The Beginner’s Mistake — Tapping— Possible and Impossible Cuts — “ Grozeing ” — Defects of the Wheel — The Actual Nature of a “Cut” in Glass.

No written directions can teach the use Cutting of the diamond ; it is as sensitive to the (elementary) hand as the string of a violin, and a good c 33

Cutting workman feels with a most delicate (elementary) touch exactly where the cutting edge is, and uses his tool accordingly.

Every apprentice counts on spoiling a guinea diamond in the learning, which will take him from one to two years.

Most cutters now use the wheel, of which illustrations are given (figs, i and 2).

The wheels themselves are good things, and cut as well as the diamond, in some respects almost better ; but many of the handles are very unsatisfactory. From some of them indeed one might suppose, if such a thing were conceivable, that the maker knew nothing of the use of the tool.

For it is held thus (fig. 5), the pressure of the forefinger both guiding the cut and supplying force for it : and they 34

Figs, i and 2.

give you an edge to press on (fig. i) instead of a surface ! In some other patterns, indeed, they do give you the desired surface, but the tool is so thin that there is nothing to grip.

What ought to be done is to reproduce the shape of the old wooden handle of the diamond proper ” (figs. 3 and 4).

The foregoing passage must, however, be amplified and modified, but this I will do further on, for you will understand the reasons better if I insert it after what I had written further with regard to the cutting of glass.

How to Sharpen the Wheel Cutter. — The right way to do this is difficult to describe in writing. You must, first of all, grind down the “shoulders” of the tool, through which the pivot of the wheel

Figs. 3 and 4, l

Cutting goes, for they are made so large that the (elementary) wheej cannot reach the stone (fig. 6), and

Fig. 5.

must be reduced (fig. 7). Then, after first oiling the pivot so that the wheel 36 may run easily, you must hold the tool as shown in fig. 8, and rub it swiftly up and down the stone. The angle at which the wheel should rest on the stone is shown in fig. 9. You will see that the angle at which the wheel meets the stone is a little blunter than the angle of the side of the wheel itself. You do not want to make the tool too sharps otherwise you will risk breaking down the edge, when the wheel will cease to be truly circular, and when that occurs it is absolutely useless. The same thing will happen if the wheel is checked in its revolution while sharpening, and therefore the pivot must be kept oiled both for cutting and sharpening.

It is a curious fact to notice that the tool, be it wheel or diamond, that is too sharp is not, in practice, found to make so good a cut as one that is less sharp ; it scratches the glass and throws up a line of splinters.

How to Cut Glass.— Hold the cutter as shown in the illustration (fig. 5), a little

Figs. 6 and 7.

Cutting sloping towards you, but perfectly upright (elementary) laterally; draw it towards you, hard enough to make it just bite the glass. If it leaves a mark you can hardly see it is a good cut (fig. iob), but if it scratches a white line, throwing up glass-dust as it goes, either the tool is faulty, or you are pressing too hard, or you are applying the pressure to the wheel unevenly and at an angle to the direction of the cut (fig. ioa). Not that you can make the wheel move sideways in the cut actually ; 38 it will keep itself straight as a ploughshare keeps in its furrow, but it will press sideways, and so break down the edges of the furrow, while if you exaggerate this enough it will actually leave the furrow, and, ceasing to cut, will “skid ” aside over the glass. As to pressure, all cutters begin by pressing much too hard ; the tool having started biting, it should be kept only just biting while drawn along. The cut should be

Cutting almost noiseless . You think you’re not cut- ( elementary) ting because you don’t hear it grate, but hold the glass sideways to the light and you will see the silver line quite continuous.

Fig. ii.

Having made your cut, take the glass up; hold it as in fig. n, press downward with the thumbs and upward with the fingers, and the glass will come apart.

But you want to cut shaped pieces as 40 well as straight. You cannot break these Cutting directly the cut is made, but, holding the (elementary) glass as in fig. 12, and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, sharp jerks of the fingers only, so as to tap along the underside of your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, showing that the glass is dividing ; and when that silver line has sprung from end to end, a gentle pressure will bring the glass apart.

Cutting This upward jerk must be sharp and (elementary) swift, but must be calculated so as only just to reach the glass, being checked just at the right point, as one hammers a nail when one does not want to stir the work into which the nail is driven. A pushing stroke, a blow that would go much further if the glass were not there, is no use ; and for this reason neither the elbow nor the hand must move ; the knuckles are the hinge upon which the stroke revolves.

But you can only cut certain shapes — for instance, you cannot cut a wedge-shaped gap out of a piece of glass (fig. 1 3) ; however tenderly you handle it, it will split at point A. The nearest you Cutting

can go to it is a curve; and the deeper (elementary)

the curve the more difficult it is to get

the piece out. In fig. 14 A is an average

easy curve, B a difficult one, C impossible,

except by “ groseing ” or “ grozeing ” as

cutters call it ; that is, after the cut is

made, setting to work to patiently bite

the piece out with pliers (fig. 15).

Now, further, you must understand that you must not cut round all the sides of a shaped piece of glass at once ; indeed, you must only cut one side at a time, and draw your cut right up to the edge of the glass, and break away the whole piece which contains the side you are cutting before you go on to another.

Thus, in fig. 16, suppose the shaded

Cutting portion to be the shape that you wish to (elementary) cut out Qf t}le piece Qf glass, A, B, C, D.

You must lay your gauge angle wise down upon the piece. Do not try to get the sides parallel to the shapes of your gauge, for that makes it much more difficult ; angular pieces break off the easiest

Now, then, cut the most difficult piece first. That marked i. Perhaps you will not cut it quite true ; but, if not, then shift the gauge slightly on to another part of the curve, and very likely it may fit that better and so come true.

Then follow with one of those marked 44

2 or 3. Probably it would be safest to Cutting

cut the larger and more difficult piece (elementary)

first, and get both the curved cuts right by

your gauge ; then you can be quite sure

of getting the very easy small bit off quite

truly, to fit into its place with both of

them. Go on with 4, and then with one

of those marked 5 or 6. Probably it

would still be best to cut the curved piece

first, unless you think that shortening it

by cutting off the small corner-piece first

will make the curved cut easier by making

it shorter.

In any case you must only cut one side at a time, and break it away before you make the cut for another side.

Take care that you do not go back in your cut. You must try and make it quite continuous onwards ; for if you go back in the cut, where your tool has already thrown up splinters, it will spoil your tool and spoil your cut also.

Difficult curves, that it is only just possible to get out by groseing, ought never to be resorted to, except for some very sufficient reason. A cartoonist who knows the craft will avoid setting such tasks to the cutter ; but, unfortunately, many cartoonists do not know the craft. If

Cutting people were taught the complete craft as (elementary) they should be, this book would not have been written.

Here let me say that we cannot possibly within the narrow limits of it go thoroughly into all the very wide range of subjects connected with glass — the chemistry, the permanence, the purity of materials. With the exception of the practice of the craft, probably we shall not be able to go thoroughly into any one of them ; but I shall endeavour to mention them all, and to do so sufficiently to indicate the directions in which work and research and experiment may be made, for they are all three much needed in several directions.

It becomes, for instance, now my task, in modifying the passage some pages back as I promised, to go into one of these subjects in the light of inquiries made since the passage in question was written ; and I let it for the time being stand just as it was, without the additional information, because it gives a picture of how such things crop up and of the way in which such investigations may be made, and of how useful and pleasant they may be.

Here then let us have —

A LITTLE DISSERTATION UPON CUTTING.

Through the agent for the wheel-cutter in England I communicated with the maker and inventor in America, and told him of our difficulties and perplexities over here, and chiefly with regard to two points. First, the awkwardness of the handle, which causes the glaziers here to use the tool bound round with wadding, or enclosed in a bit of india-rubber pipe ; and, secondly, the bluntness of the “jaws” which hold the wheel, and which must be ground down (and are in universal practice ground down), before the tool can be sharpened.

His reply called attention to a number of different patterns of handle, the existence of which, I think, is not generally known, in England at any rate, and some of which seem to more or less meet the difficulties we experience, most of them also being made with malleable iron handles, so that fresh cutting-wheels can be inserted in the same handle. His letter also entered into the question of the actual dynamics of “ cutting,” maintaining, I think rightly, that a “ cut ” is made by the edge of the wheel (this

Cutting not being very sharp) forcing the particles (elementary) Gf the glass down into the mass of it by pressure.

With regard to the old-fashioned pattern of tool which we chiefly use in this country, the very sufficient explanation is that they continue to make it because we continue to demand it, a circumstance which, as he declares, is a mystery to the inventor himself ! Nevertheless, as we do so, and, in spite of the variety of newer tools on the market, still go on grinding down the jaws of our favourite, and wrapping round the handle with cotton-wool, let us try and put this matter straight, and compare our requirements with the advantages offered us.

There are three chief points to be cleared up. (i) The actual nature of a “ cut ” in glass ; (2) the question of sharpening the tool and grinding down of the jaws to do so; and (3) the “ mystery ” of our preference for a particular tool, although we all confess its awkwardness by the means we take to modify it.

(1) With regard, then, to the nature of a “ cut ” in glass I am disposed entirely to agree with the theory put forward by the inventor of the wheel, which an examination of the cuts under the micro- Cutting scope, or even a 6 diameter lens, certainly (elementary) also tends to confirm.

What happens appears to my non-scientific eyes to be this.

Glass is one of the most fissile or “ splittable ” of all materials ; but it is so just in the same way that ice is, and just in the opposite way to that in which slate or talc is.

Slate or talc splits easily into thin layers or laminas, because it already lies in such layers , and these will come apart when the force is applied between them : but it will only split into the lamina of which it already is composed , and along the line of the fissures which already exist between them.

Glass, on the contrary (and the same is true of ice, or for that matter of currant-jelly and such like things), appears to be a substance which is the same in all directions, or nearly so, and therefore as liable to split in one direction as in another, and is so loosely held together that, once a splitting force is applied, the crack spreads very rapidly and easily, and therefore smoothly and in straight lines and in even planes.

D

Cutting The diamond, or the wheel-cutter, is (elementary) such a force. Being pressed on to the surface, it forces down the particles, and these start a series of small vertical splits, sometimes nearly through the whole thickness of the glass, though invisibly so until the glass is separated. And mark, that it is the starting of the splits that is the important thing ; there is no object in making them deep , it is only wasted force ; they will continue to split of themselves if encouraged in the proper way (see Plates IX. and X.). Try this as follows.

Take a bit of glass, say 3 inches by 2, and make the very smallest dint you can in it, in the middle of the narrowest dimension. You cannot make one so small that the glass will hold together if you try to break it across. It will break across in a straight line, springing from each end of the tiny cut. The cut may be only J of an inch long ; less — it may be only tV, ttst — as small as you will, the glass will break across just the same.

Why?

Because the cut has started it splitting at each end ; and the material being the same all through, the split will go straight

5° on in the direction in which it has started ; there is nothing to turn it aside.

So also the pressure of the wheel starts a continuous split, or series of splits, downwards , into the thickness of the glass. No matter how small a distance these go in, the glass will come asunder directly pressure is applied.

Now, if you press too hard in cutting, another thing takes place.

Imagine a quantity of roofing-slates piled flat one on top of another, all the piles being of equal height and arranged in two rows, side by side, so close that the edges of the slates in one row touch the edges of those in the other row, along a central line.

Wheel a wheelbarrow along that line over the edges of both.

What would happen ?

The top layer of slates would all come cocking their outer edges up as the barrow passed over their inner ones, would they not ?

Now, just so, if you press hard on your glass-cutting wheel, it will press down the edges of the groove, and though there are no layers already made in the glass, the pressure will split off' a thin layer from the

Cutting top surface of the glass on each side in (elementary) as ^ goes along (Plate X., D, e).

This is what gives the noise of the cut, c-r-r-r-r-r- ; and as the thing is no use the noise is no use ; like a good many other things in life, the less noise the better work, much cry generally meaning little wool, as the man found out who shaved the pig.

But the wheel or the diamond is not quite the same as the wheel of the wheelbarrow, for it has a wedge-shaped edge. Imagine a barrow with such a wheel ; what then would happen to your slates ? besides being cocked up by the wheel, they would also be pushed out , surely ?

This happens in glass. You must not imagine that glass is a rigid thing , it is very elastic, and the wedge-like pressure of the wheel pushes it out just as the keel of a boat pushes the water aside in ripples (Plate X., d, e).

All these observations seem to me to bear out the theory of the inventor, and perhaps to some extent to explain it. I am much tempted to carry them further, and ask the questions, why a pen-knife as well as a wheel will not make a cut in glass, but will make a perfectly definite

" 5 2 scratch on it if the glass is placed under water ? and why this line so made will yet not serve for separating the glass ? and why a piece of glass can be cut in two (roughly, to be sure, but still cut in two) with a pair of scissors under water, a thing otherwise quite impossible ?

But I do not think that the knowledge of these questions will help the reader to do better stained-glass windows, and therefore I will not pursue them.

(2) The question of sharpening the tool is soon disposed of.

If the tool is to be sharpened, the jaws must be ground down, whether the maker grinds them down originally or whether we do it. Is sharpening worth while, since the tool only costs a few pence ?

Well, it’s a question each must decide for himself ; but I will just answer two small difficulties which affect the matter.

If grinding the jaws loosens the pivot, it can be hammered tight again with a punch. If sharpening wears out the oil-stone (as it undoubtedly does, and oil-stones are expensive things), a piece of fine polished Westmoreland slate will do as well, and there is no need to be chary of it. Even a piece of ground-glass with oil will do.

Cutting (3) But now as to the handle. I am (elementary) £rst to eXplain the amusing “mystery”

why the old pattern shown in fig. 1 still sells.

It is because the British working-man is convinced that the wheels in this handle are better quality than any others .

Is he right, or is it only an instance of his love for and faith in the thing he has got used to ?

Or can it be that all workmen do not know of the existence of the other types of handle ? In case this is so, I figure some (%• I7)« Or is it that the wheel for some reason runs less truly in the malleable iron than in the cast iron ?