Koi panel is "all done," as some folks say!

The koi panel is "all done"(as some folks say when they've completed a task). I finished leading and soldering it tonight, after work. The next stage is to get Phil to build a cabinet door frame for it.  He's out fly fishing today.  If he had stayed home, he could have had flattened koi instead.  Not as tasty, though.

The picture was taken at night.  I'll take another one tomorrow morning when it's sunny out (and over 100 df AGAIN).

Ready to begin construction

Everything has been foiled. Where there isn't foil there will be lead came. The perimeter edges will be finished in zinc. Construction will have to wait for a couple of weekends (too late to begin tonight--Sunday). The exterior of the house is being painted next weekend and my work bench is in the open. I don't want to have the panel covered in terra cotta colored texture coat.

 The koi are finished, fired and I'm ready to begin building the panel.  Glassline stained glass paint works just fine.  The gray scales fired out to a lovely pale gray, unobtrusive, and that was what I was worried about.

Here is a close up of fins and scales...

and below, a close up of the female fish's eyes and mouth.

The Right Stuff

I finally got the glass for the koi panel. It's taken a while to paint the scales.  Very tedious. The paint is not the usual Reusche, but Glassline, and it is best fired at 1500 df which definitely makes the glass have a different visual texture--smoother and shinier after test firing.  Firing that hot also makes the edges of the fired piece rounder.

The scales may not show up in direct light because they are painted gray and will fire quite pale. However, the aim is to hint at the scales, not have them be obvious.  The eyes and mouth and whiskers, however, are painted with Glassline black over the pale gray.  If it all works out I'll be one happy camper.  Keep your fingers crossed!

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

No UPS deliveries on Sunday, so no orange glass. I had to get my glass-cutting fix by re-doing the bottom of the panel. I wasn't happy with the orange-green stuff I had used, so out it went (most of it) and I got out some glass I had been terrified to cut. See all of those ripples? They are very deep and breaking this glass, once it has been scored, is not easy. This glass has a mind of its own. It likes to shatter at unexpected times, or run any which way except the way I scored it.

I cut, and I cursed, and I re-cut it, until I finally gave in and made mostly straight cuts. The finished pieces were held to the grinder to get the curves I wanted, and to grind a bevel onto the back of each piece so I could foil/lead it.  I used part of the orangey green glass for reasons only known to my mind alone.

In my box of tricks I found an amethyst geode slice, and ground THAT down, as well.  No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and nothing is safe from my grinder!  Nothing.

Hooked on Uroborus glass.

I'm still waiting for the right shade of orange to come along for the koi in my panel.  Gee whiz!  How many different shades of orange ARE there?  Obviously my eye hasn't seen one I like yet, and my glass bins runneth over with every shade but the right one.

In the meantime, the lily pads are working out well, and even though I plan on painting and firing the eyes, scales, and fin spines whenever the right shade of orange happens to get to my front door, I've indicated the eyes with green glass globs which make the fish look drugged out...koi on crack. They are dead-in-the-pan-looking fish right now. Maybe it's the expression on their faces. I have yet to meet a fish with a sense of humor. The snail is a fossil (like me!) but I love her anyway.

The bottom of the pond is pumpkin/green Uroborus (I love this stuff) and the top of the geode slice is where a line of lead begins. This will run "behind" the fish up to one of the lily pads. There will be other stem-like lead lines running vertically in the panel as well. The water glass came for the top of the panel, but my day job keeps me from getting home in time to cut glass.

Koi panel begins

While I'm waiting for some new glass molds to arrive, I though I'd start on the koi panel for the A.V. cabinet door.  I'm using some gorgeous teal blue Uroborus mottled glass for the water.  I found a small fossil at a gem show and thought I'd add it, climbing up a water plant.  The glass for the koi, the bottom and top of the panel should arrive soon.  This panel will be a mixture of lead and copper foil.  It is not entirely my own design...sigh.  Drawing fish is not my forte.