stained glass kits

Why would you want to buy stained glass kits? Well I suppose one of the most obvious answers is it makes it easier, so why not.

You may have a desire to take up stained glass as a hobby but you don’t know very much about it so you’re intimidated by all the strange terminology. What exactly is a fid? What do you do with lead came? What’s copper foil for? Now you might be like me and when you get the urge to try something new you just throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet! (How’s that for mixing metaphors). So you just pop along to your local library and see what books you can find on stained glass, or more likely these days you surf the Internet for information, I do too. But I still like to get my hands on a good book now and again.

Okay so you’ve got some basic information about stained glass, you know what a fid is (it’s for opening the channel in lead came or burnishing copper foil) But you’re still slightly overwhelmed by this new information. Do you want to do stained glass work using the very traditional lead came which dates back to medieval times or would you prefer to use the copper foil method which was put to such famous use by the Tiffany Workshops. And there is a bewildering choice of stained glass available.

Whichever method you use you will find you can do very similar projects; though copper foil usually has the advantage for making more complicated designs with very small pieces of glass such as lamp shades especially “Tiffany” style lamp shades, or trinket boxes or kaleidoscopes. Now you’ve realised that you need a whole lot of new equipment for your stained glass hobby, well maybe not need exactly but the right equipment makes things much easier. So you’re looking at buying glass cutters fids, foiling machines, soldering irons, glass grinding machines, extractor fans. You also need to find patterns for the projects you want to make. Or maybe you could just buy the essential tools like tools for cutting copper foil (scissors) or lead came and a soldering iron (a good temperature controlled soldering iron should be suitable for copper or lead work) and assemble some ready cut kits. With pre-cut glass pieces you won’t need a glass grinder which can be one of the most expensive pieces of equipment

There’s no shame in trying the easy way first, you’ve got to learn the skills necessary. Classes can be good but what if there are no classes where you live. Buy yourself some kits and have a go. See what’s available and choose the sort of thing you want to make, decide whether you’re going to do copper foil or lead came. Some beginners prefer copper foil but these days lead came is available in fine pliable form especially for the smaller kits such as night lights and votive candle kits. maybe you’d like to make a sun catcher to hang in the window or a lamp shade or nightlight. There are thousands of kits available and of course they are available by mail order via the internet if you haven’t got a supplier close to home.

You can get pre cut stained glass kits for just about anything you desire from some excellent companies. Kits for Lampshades, fan lamps, night lights, sun catchers, window panels, door panels, Christmas decorations, and the list is almost endless and there are usually new ideas for seasonal holidays. The kits are excellent value and you will soon learn the basics of handling the materials, foiling, handling lead came, soldering and so on. When you get a feel for it you can decide if you want to stretch you’re abilities by cutting your own glass and maybe even designing your own pieces.