About Me

Hi

Welcome to my first posting in this blog on a beginners guide to Glass Etching and Glass Carving with a bit of everything else thrown in.

The idea / reason behind this blog is that information in this area is at best limited and the info that is available it is so well spread around in You Tube videos, forums, the Internet and the odd book that most people will give up trying, so I have decided to chart my progress from a not quite beginner to a reasonably competent glass artist and collate all of the information I come across. While doing this I hope that all aspiring glass etchers will follow along and learn at the same time as I do.

I say not quite a beginner, because I do have a little experience as I am self taught in stained glass work and first took it up around 1990 then continued up until around 4 years ago when I just stopped sold most of my gear and started restoring a 1986 Panther Kallista. Now that it is finished I have decided to start up again

 Isn't she pretty.

One of my early works in 1992 a attempt at a Egret.

Some my leaded and Tiffiny work.

This piece was from an old methodist church rose window.

I was asked if it could be repaired.
Eh! no.
So I was commissioned to make a new one, leaded and fused paint.

In my younger days.

This was designed as a trophy for a boxing match.

Lots of fusing in this piece.

and a nice little art piece.

This was one of my biggest works a metre square designed for a bar in my home town of South Shields called The Trimmers Arms and included Lead work, Copper foil and a lot of fusing. This was made in 2005 and believe it or not is still there plus a lot of my other work.

Around 2007 I moved into glass repairs and developed a virtually invisible way of replacing broken pieces, unfortunately I am no business man and after a few hundred repairs I found I was losing money so gave it up. 

While I was on my last job before I gave up, which was an old Methodist church being transformed into a luxury house (over 90 repairs) I came across a couple of broken dedication panels, these are at the bottom of each window dedicating the window to a dead family member. After a number of attempts of replicating the panels using powdered paints and kiln firing I was still unhappy with the results, I even paid for a couple of nights training by a brilliant glass painter who lives in the North East (he restores the windows at Durham Cathedral) but was still rubbish. 

I then had the idea of making a design of the panel on the computer using a similar font to the original then printing and transferring to a vinyl resist, I stuck it to the glass and cut out the writing by hand then painted inside of the template before removing and firing. This worked after a fashion but tended to pull at the edges so I had to touch up  which I still wasn't happy with, my next idea was to etch the inside of the template to give the paint a key to stay in place. Great idea, just had to buy the gear to do it; so, to cut a long story short this is how I started glass etching.

No more stained glass for this boy it was etching / carving all of the way, I have etched Glass, Stone, Ceramic tiles, Porcelain tiles and Stainless steel, I have Gold inlaid, Glue chipped, air brushed, colour magic painted, one shot painted, Vitrail painted the whole shooting match. But and a big but is that was over 4 maybe 5 years ago so now I am starting over.

In this blog I hope to make it so that anyone starting has a basic idea of how to go about getting set up including the costs which are considerable, I shall have links to other bloggers with etching instruction, instruction videos from you tube and web sites, design sites, and most importantly the glass Forums which when a member are invaluable for information and links.

Just a sample of some of my etch work over the years.

One of my larger pieces, each bone is anatomically correct with a little poem around the outside. The foot bones connected to the etc etc.

This is a beautiful design which I wish I still had, I have tried a couple of different techniques on this piece, Carving, glue chip and gold inlay.

Deep etched panel ready for inlay or paint.

A early practise at glass carving

Up the Arsenal, deep etched and air brushed on porcelain.

Man United on red ceramic with yellow airbrushed on.

500mm square porcelain tile for family crest commission.

Flower of Scotland commission, with paint floated in and domed using 2 pack resin.

These are just a few of the pieces I have made over the years and this blog will cover all of the information on how to set up and achieve these and better.

Just a proviso, 

There are many master glass craftsmen out there in the UK the USA, India, China and more countries than I can spell. 

I AM NOT ONE OF THEM 

So if you have comments on what I put down here and you know a better, easier way to do it then please comment and give your knowledge to us mere mortals.

Paul