Stained Glass Stars – Part 1
Stained Glass Stars – Part 1

Stained Glass Stars – Part 1

So I’ve been thinking about my next stained glass project ever since finishing my spider web last month. However, I haven’t had any time for stained glassing.  Until today!  They let us out of work 3 hours early [woohoo!], and since I’m not traveling for Thanksgiving [thank god] I headed down to my basement workshop the minute I got home.  I already knew what I wanted to make, because I saw it hanging in a window last week while I was out walking:  a glass star cut from one piece of glass.  I figured I could cut it out, foil the outer edges, solder them, attach a loop at the top for hanging, and be done.  But nothing related to DIY is ever as easy as it seems.

I started by unwrapping the colored glass pieces I bought 2 months ago at Shards in Peabody, MA, which included a blue piece, a purple piece, a green piece, and a red piece.  I decided to start with blue.  I sketched a freehand star onto the glass with a sharpie, then tried to cut it:

228a        228b

D’oh!  I tried cutting it again, and the same thing happened.  That’s when I ran upstairs and googled “cutting a star out of glass” and realized it’s not possible.  At least without a laser cutting machine.  You have to cut at least 5 pieces of glass and solder them together.  So I googled “star pattern” and found one I liked.  I loaded it into paint shop and drew cutting lines:

228c2        228d

I cut the pattern into 5 pieces, traced each piece onto the blue glass, and cut them:

228e        228f

I used my glass grinder to smooth down a few rough edges then foiled each piece:

228g        228h

Then it was back down to the basement to solder the star together.  I started with the 5 central seams, flipped it over and did the seams on the back side, then wedged it between the wood and soldered each edge:

228p

I created a hanging loop for the star out of copper wire & soldered it on top:

228j        228q

Solder is really crazy/cool stuff!  A bunch of it dripped and fell onto my workbench, but it didn’t stick – once it cooled I could pick it up and move it around:

228r        228s

A few drops fell onto the floor and thankfully missed my foot.  I’m guessing that wouldn’t feel very good…

I hung the star in the living room window.  I can’t believe that in just 2½ hours I went from raw glass to finished star!!!

228t        228u

I’ll end this post with some cute pictures of the rats eating whipped cream.  They LOVE whipped cream!

228x        228v

228w

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8 Comments

  1. Brooke McAvoy

    I like the way that you hung up your stained glass spider web. This seems like a great way to hang up a project that I am working on right now, so thank you for describing how you did it. Your star is pretty cool, do you have any ideas of good places to buy glass? I have been wanting to find more and cooler color options.

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