How to Make Stained Glass Lights for a Ceiling Fan
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Stained glass ceiling fan lights can be simple colored panels.glass night-lamps image by Lucy Cherniak from Fotolia.com
Draw the pattern on your glass light cover using a marker. Place the tracing paper around the light cover. To make the paper lie flat, you’ll need to cut the paper into pie-shaped sections and tape it on with the small, pointed end at the top. Draw the pattern on the paper, mark the glass grain direction using an arrow, then trace and number each piece. Cut the pattern pieces using foil shears. - 2). Glue the pattern pieces to the glass using rubber cement and keeping the grain arrow on the pattern in line with the glass grain. Remove excess rubber cement by rubbing your thumb along the edges of the pattern.
- 3). Score around the pattern with your glass cutter, applying firm, steady pressure. To remove the scored (cut) piece from the glass sheet, use runners to break the long, straight lines you've scored and grozers to break away small bits of glass or curved angles a little bit at a time. Grind each piece using a power grinder.
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Mosaic designs can bring interesting texture to your fan lights.stained glass image by Anna Katarzyna from Fotolia.com
Wrap copper foil around the edges of the glass, making sure there is an equal amount of overhang on both sides. Burnish the foil with the fid or burnishing tool. You can find tool like fids (a plastic tool used to smooth foil, flatten a dented channel of lead and remove excess putty from the corners of a project), burnishing tools (wooden tool shaped somewhat like a light bulb used to flatten - burnish - foil on glass), soldering irons, solder, flux (a chemical used to adhere lead solder to foil) and grinders at stained glass supply shops. - 5). Place the foiled pieces on your glass light and glue into place with E3000. Make sure the glue does not seep through the copper foil seams.
- 6). Apply flux to the copper foil and tack solder. Run beads to solder the entire copper foil seam.
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Diffused light from stained glass will cast interesting patterns on your ceiling.Vitrail image by Loic LE BRUSQ from Fotolia.com
Clean the light thoroughly with dish soap and water, scrubbing the soldered seams with steel wool to remove the flux. Apply black patina to the soldered seams. Clean the shade again, polish the glass and mount the glass light on your ceiling fan.
