Well my last project went the way I expected for a first attempt, if not quite a failure then not something I would own up to making, ha.
It got me thinking how to solve the problem of the black lines and the damage caused when pulling the resist, I have started a new one and have etched it deeper and am letting it dry overnight before pulling the first resist then I shall work on it.
I had a number of problems to contend with when trying to re-create a stained glass panel, the main problems were; the time taken to clean up the design and the difference in line thickness and spacing, then I realised the answer was sitting in the drawer.
When I made solely stained glass I used a program for designing glass panels called Glass Eye 2000.
This undoubtedly is the best on the market, although there are a number of other good programs out there, so I searched it out to see if it could be used. Unfortunately it has the most complex security password system of any program out there and I am in contact with the developers in the USA trying to get my registration back.
The idea of the program is to draw a stained glass panel, re-size it and colour it with all of the tools available to make it very easy, I used to use this for all glass panels I made and I think it would be perfect for making etching patterns.
What make's a program like this ideal is that the line work is a perfect width that can be adjusted from a fine 1/32" up to 1/2" wide, the pattern can then be exported in a number of formats then imported into your vectorizing program and converted into the desired pattern. This can be either centreline traced for carving or line seperated for stencil etching or as I have been trying deep etching and colour filled.
Glass eye has a number of ready made patterns available as part of the program so I selected on to try out.
I picked the Egret design and have tried it in 4 different styles.
Firstly I need to remove the colour by just clicking the colour off button.
I then need to remove the glass cut lines leaving just the design, simply done by clicking on the line and deleting.
It is now that the design can be highlighted and the line width changed to your preferred width and exported to your desktop folder, I used a .png format and the quality is always perfect as it does not have to be downloaded at 72 dpi so no loss of quality.
Once imported into your program it can be vectorised for your cutting machine, of course if you do not have a cutter it can be printed off and used as a pattern to be copied onto your resist.
If the lines aren't wide enough it is very easy to return to Glass eye alter the line thickness and re-export.
Here are 3 different line thicknesses 1/8" 3/16" and 7/32 as you get wider you tend to loss a little detail, still who wants 1/2" lines.
I printed out to see what cut lines I missed.
Then went back in and cleaned them up a little before cutting.
It was then weeded before being stuck on the glass ready for etching.
This design I deep etched ready to try the colour again.
I sprayed with black gloss.
You can also use the design with a little alteration for glass carving, you can either vectorise using the center line trace or use the above wider cut lines and pull as necessary.
This is a centerline trace which can be read as a single cutting line by your machine.
Difficult to see in this photo but shows the cut lines and pull numbers for a glass carving design.
This is my very poor attempt at glass carving using this resist pattern but hell its been around 4 to 5 years since I last did one.
I shall go through each use of Glass eye to produce patterns as I think it is the perfect tool to get a machine cut image ready for vectorising with perfect lines.
Paul
