Timely comment!! Thank you. We will be making more videos this weekend.

Glad I could help gary

So glad it was helpful

thank you Katie, We hope to keep going with these

Glad to hear that the techniques look helpful .....Proof is in the pudding as they say (right? Is that what they say) so let me know how all these tricks work for you putting iron to foil. Very Best, Kai

@@shardsglassstudio9298 Hey Kai, yeah it was a big improvement. I still need to practice but it was so much better. Thanks a lot

Im so glad Mckenzie! Soldering is one of those things that will improve quickly, with a few pointers.

Im so glad you enjoyed and it helped in this part of the process.

Very glad this was helpful!!

Good luck! It’s not that hard when you have a few good tricks up your sleeve

Thank you Therese, Im glad they are helpful and yes we intend to keep going with these

Thank you, So glad that you found this helpful

Oh good idea, re: hanging hooks….next time for sure

Thanks Yuliya, Grinding is necessary for the most part with all pieces that are being used in a copper foil project. #1, grinding takes the sharpness from the cut edge of the glass, thus preventing the foil tape from being cut or split. #2, Also when grinding, keeping the glass down on the platform of grinder will give your piece a nice 90 degree edge, making it easier to foil evenly. Hope this helps!

@@shardsglassstudio9298 thank you very much for your response. It is very helpful.

Ahhhh, good point. As each iron is calibrated differently it is hard to suggest a temperature setting. Many irons do not use actual Fahrenheit #s but use more of a 1-5 setting. Therefore it is necessary to experiment. But, to your point (a good one) the front of a piece will always be soldered at a higher temperature than the back of a piece. This is because when soldering the back, the front is already "sealed" and therefore requires a lower temp so as to not leak through the finished front, and allow flux to heat and evaporate some in order to mitigate sputtering

This technique is called copper foil. It is only good for inside work. If you wanted something to stand up to weather, the technique you want to explore is lead came.

Hi David, Glad this has been helpful. We usually set the iron to the 460 setting. No adjustment for solder types, but often will dial down the temp a bit when doing the second side to mitigate “leak throughs”

@@shardsglassstudio9298 thank you for the response

Hello, what wattage is the iron? 100w?

Im glad you enjoyed it....you should come visit us. Right now we are only doing private lessons. The studio is large, but we need to free up too many tables for classes. We are slammed with bench work (commission work) and cant give up the time on benches for classes....but please come for a visit when you have some time!!

@@shardsglassstudio9298 thank you I will come visit one day ! So hard to find Glass studios so this would be a treat! 😊😊

So... what is stained glass construction then?

@cox6353 Stained glass... Clear glass the has a design added to it using mineral stains that are heat fused onto the glass surface (please note that coloured glass is a glass where the colour is not just on the surface). The glass is then held in place using lead came and solder ( sol der. There is no such thing as a silent L. The word americans say is sodder, which is something completely different......)

Hi Melissa, the first thing I would ask is what kind of solder are you using? There are different grades of solder. Some are virginal., Which means they have not been reconstituted old lead. Those would work the best and not leave black spots. The other culprit can be your flux. The job of flux is to clean the copper foil before soldering. If the flux is old and not doing the job, then the result is black spots in your solder. Hope this helps

I would try a different flux. The one we use is called Novacan liquid flux. The flux is an acid, so it can loose its strength over time and some, like a paste flux is not the flux of choice for copper foil. If the solder is melting with contact of the iron tip, then thats not the problem. The other thing you can try is to use xtra fine (oooo) steel wool on your foil seams to shine them up. If they have oxidized they will not take solder either. Good luck!

Yes I do use a gel flux… I thought that could be it..Plus my solder does not stick very well to my sides..Thanks

Without looking at your piece, I cant tell you definitively where the issue may be, but i can make a couple of guesses. First, when you have a straight line, or near straight line in a piece it wants to "fold" or bend in that area. One way to mitigate that is to run strong line or wire around the perimeter. (for future be aware that straight lines through are weak spots in any design). Second, make sure your piece is bead soldered both front and back. The bead is what creates the metal infrastructure to lend the piece support. Even if you have patina'd you can still go back into the soldering and add more. Hope this helps

We use the Hakko Iron with a built in reostat. This iron has been reengineered a bit , but the FX-601 goes up to 1005 degrees. If you are looking at electronic irons they wont go up high enough.

Hi Mike, it’s s hakko iron. Expensive but we’ll worth it. Lightweight, holds tip temperature well and built in reostat.

Huh! I’ve never heard of that….how come?

@@shardsglassstudio9298 it reduces the chance of the glass breaking due to overheating