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When you heard “stained glass” spoken of the first time, hasn’t it impressed a negative connotation? Stain is commonly associated with dirt. The first thing that comes to mind with stain is being blemished, contaminated, disgraced, tainted or tarnished. It is quite funny that craftsmen used the word “stain” for colouring wood before applying a finishing coat over it to render effects provided by the dye or “stain”. In the context of using “stain” on wood for certain aesthetic effects, one would wonder how that could be possible applied to glass. We all know that glass surface is non-porous and very smooth. Even acrylic paint easily peels off the material. How is glass “stained”? Staining glass is not superficially done the way you do it on wood. The colour is thoroughly mixed with the glass itself while still very hot and molten in the “pot”. Glass requires a very high temperature to melt, something that could not be done by the furnaces of ancient glass makers. They had to add other materials to melt glass at lower temperatures such as lead, potash or soda. But the process leaves the silica network weak so they also had to add lime to make the flattened glass sheet finished product stable. There are generally two ways to stain glass. The first is the one just described above where the glass is coloured in its molten stage. The second method uses an already finished glass sheet product. A small amount of glass is molten and subjected to colouring. The coloured molten glass is blown over the “carrier” glass material in a thin sheet. This involves a particularly skilful manoeuvring as the result is dependent upon the skill and style of the “blower”. It is the thin coloured glass that renders the sheet its colour. That is how flashed glass is produced. This technique was usually used for lighter-colour shade requirements especially with pieces requiring bright reds since gold powder, the original red colouring agent is expensive and produces a darkish red colour. The innovativeness of man leads him to find ways to solve many of his problems. Gold powder, for instance, was later replaced with copper which produced a brighter red more vermilion in shade. Use of copper oxides yields a green colouring, while cobalt is used to come up with pieces where blue is desired. Combinations of these glass staining materials produce desired colours in much the same way we deal with shades and tints in the colour spectrum. Our modern glass makers can be considered very fortunate. The stage had already been set by their predecessors. More innovations in design and techniques are just waiting to be explored and are quite easier to realise than by their earlier-time counterparts. Modern computer and electronics technologies are now used in any and every industry. Are you looking for a stained glass feature? Click below for all the best info about Stained Glass Melbourne
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