Copper Foil Stained Glass

 

Making stained glass is the art of cutting glass into pieces and arranging those pieces into beautiful decorative pieces depicting various designs or pictures of events. Copper foil tape (instead of lead came) is used to wrap the edges of individual pieces of stained glass that are soldered together. This allows for glass pieces to be arranged into two dimensional pieces of art (stained glass window) or three dimensional pieces of art (stained glass vases, lamps). This specific technique of using copper foil to solder the edges of individual pieces of glass together is called the Tiffany stained glass method.

 

 

 

Another, more traditional method of crafting stained glass is the use of lead instead of copper foil. The use of lead requires that the lead strips of reinforcement be assembled first, and the broken pieces of glass be inserted into the lead cradle to make stained glass mosaics.

 

This method is not preferred by many stained glass workers because the glass, once assembled, will be more susceptible to a process of "bowing", where the weight of the glass at the top of the piece pushes down on the bottom of the piece and the glass in the center begins to bow outward, forming a type of bubble on the glass. Bowing does not appear to happen with copper foil stained glass.

 

Copper is preferred by many artists over lead because the copper foil stained glass is not only less likely to bow, but it is water proof, much stronger than lead when soldered, and requires no putty. Depending on the width and weight of the glass the glass maker is working with, a thinner or thicker piece of copper foil will be used.

 

Copper foil is sold in roles like regular office tape, has an adhesive backing protected by protection paper, and is relatively easy to work with for beginners. The size of the copper foil will also determine the thickness of the seams holding the pieces of the copper foil stained glass together.

 

Because of the malleability of the copper foil, the Tiffany method of copper foil stained glass allows much more intricate and delicate designs to be produced out of the stained glass. Every stained glass lamp shade ever produced has been produced using the copper foil stained glass method. The intricacy and delicacy of the shape of a lampshade is too three dimensional for the lead process to be used.

 

Many beginners to the art of stained glass making find the copper foil stained glass projects to be the easiest to work with, but there are the traditionalists who believe that the only way to properly produce a stained glass project is through the leading method. All in all, it is no more than a matter of personal preference.

 

When all the pieces of glass to be used in your copper foil stained glass project have been cut and cleaned, the process of foiling can begin. Every piece of glass must be foiled. If every piece of glass is not properly cleaned, it is possible that any debris or oil left behind from your glass cutter will cause the foil to not adhere properly.

 

No matter which method of crafting stained glass the artist decides to use, he or she should strive to understand both processes, foiling and leading. This will give the artist a range of creativity that will allow them to create leaded and foiled works of art. Knowledge of both types of methods will allow the artist to experiment with what he or she knows about both types of creative processes.

 

If the artist wants to create a traditional two dimensional piece of art, then the artist should use the leading method. If, however, the artist wants to create an intricate or three dimensionally shaped work of art, then the copper foil stained glass method should be used.