My mistakes are my daughters favorite new coloured windows, so in the end it works out ok that you have steered me in the right direction Romain. " I love my windows Daddy!" I have the best 3 year old in the entire world!

Good night from here...

Dave

Best "recycling" I could imagine!! Brilliant!!

And we all want to keep our loved ones happy, don't we!!

Cheers

Romain

Dave,
I tried printing on inkjet transparency and couldn't get the really clear, vivid colors I think you want. Tried going back over that with fine tip markers and a drafting pen for the lead lines, but it still came out looking amateurish.

Still scrounging the house for suitable materials, but I'm starting to lean back toward my original suggestion of using Shrinky Dink.

Mark

Mark, I think the only problem with using shrinky dink would be getting the final size just right. As I have mentioned my windows aren't quite symmetrical and one is larger than the other. I think I will be able to get a good result with what I have going, just need to find the right images still and take my time drawing or tracing the outlines onto the blanks.

Dave

Hey guys... just read the last two pages here and wow.. Really nice project on the go. Now if you make the glass whatever colour you wish that's fine. Now you want that "pebble-lly" look to it?

Try an air brush with future floor wax. Just hold it really up high and let the mist/spray cover the glass. I would think they would semi dry in the air and cause a pebble effect.

Be worth a try.

Cheers,
Tom

I will keep that in mind Tom, just in case. Thanks. Have you ever tried it yourself?

Dave.

Mark... just got off the phone with a guy at Micheals Crafts here in Edmonton and they sell Shrinky Dink products, 9 bucks for five 8X10 sheets! clear and frosted!!! I am so going there after work today and getting a pack...

They apparently have an injet sheet option where you can print it and shrink it... He says the stuff shrinks to one third it's original dimension, and nine times thicker. it could be awesome!!!!

thanks for the suggestion, it may be exactly what I need...

Dave

as it turns out the inkjet paper wont work with my color laser, which BTW would have solved the blurry lines problem...because of the extra heat issues. That said i purchased a pack of the regular sheets and will be experimenting with them tonight.

should be fun regardless of the outcome.

Dave

Dave,
I think you're going to like the results you get with shrinky dink, but I have a package of laserjet transparencies that will never get used. Their yours for the cost of giving me your address.

Mark

Thanks Mark. I PM'd you my addy, although I have an actual color laser, it uses toner not ink so they may not work with my printer. But you can decide either way. I always say yes to free stuff!

I am currently tracing out a pattern onto the first sheet of Shrinky dink stuff. I laugh every time I say or write it. Shrinky dink. Hehehe.

the laser sheets were for my old B&W laser printer, which used toner, so should be no problem.

Yeah, shrinky dink; something I think we all try to avoid, but inevitibly have to face as we get older--I mean, as our modelling skills mature.

Something has to mature, it may as well be my modelling skills...


Later.

Dave

In my attempts to learn and grow I soldier on...

The original image I printed from the World Wide Web ...






Picked the two I liked most, faith and hope.



Copied them via tracing the outline on one side of the sheet. Then coloured them with my sharpie type permanent markers. Wasn't completely careful of filling in all the lines and sections etc as these are just yet pieces.



Cut them out around their edges...



And then in the oven for 3 minutes at 325° C. It freaked me out a bit when they curled up. Had to pry them off each other carefully. It's hit in the oven.

This is what comes out...



Not sure I like the end product. It will be very tough to get just right. The shape is way more important than the look though and it is very hard to cut and clean up after it is cooled down

I will have to study this with an open mind and try to cook up a couple that are exactly the right dimensions.

Later dudes & dudettes!

Dave

Dave,
Guess I remember them shrinking more than that, but maybe that's just the aging grey matter. What was I talking about? ha ha

Something to experiment with might be to cut them out after shrinking instead of before, and place some dried beans on the parts that will become waste to hold it all flat--like pie crust weights.

Do you say the guy at Micheal's mentioned printable shrinky dink? Seems like that might give you a really crisp result.

Oh, one other thing I almost forgot! The images you started with appear to use painted glass, so that will possibly make it a bit tougher to achieve a goud effect. Acouple of things to keep in mind in order to wind up with drawings that will look like authentic stained glass are: make sure your lead lines (i.e.: black lines) always end on another line, and glass can't be cut (at least not with the tech available at that time) with tight interior angles, so anywherre you have those you need another connecting line. I'll post some drawings to illustrate what I mean.

Keep plugging! You'll nail those windows yet. As good as the rest of the dio appears to be, I think a set of nice stained glass windows will really take it to a whole new level. Definitely worth the trial and error IMHO.

Mark

Hey Mark, yep they did but I didn't feel like paying almost 25 bucks for five sheets of printable media when it specifically said they're not made for a laser printer, which I own. That and the regular stuff I bought was ten sheets for 10 dollars.

I thought of initially shrinking it prior to cutting it. I may try this on my next sheet, as I will be just trying to get the measurements close so whatever design I end up going with, it will fit the holes in my walls. I am not interested in doing a window reno at this point in time.

And yes the church needs a couple of nice, brightly coloured windows to warm the place up and balance the project and give balance to it all.

I have resolved to resolve this issue, and will do it and conquer it.

Off to bed now.

Dave

So it's Saturday morning here in the great white north, and I am going to do some more work on the stained glass windows... My little girl now has seven windows that she loves no matter what size or shape they are.

I don't think shrinky dink will be the answer, even though it's cool to watch it shrivel up and then lay flat again in the hot oven! It ends up being too thick, at almost 3 scale inches, and since you color on one side and draw the black lines on the other you can see a gap of clear glass between the color and the black lines because of the thickness of the final product.

On the plus side it will be fun for us to make some jewelry and such with the leftover sheets. My kidlet will love that too.

Gonna try to sandwich a clear transparency between two pieces of the pebbled glass and see how that works. But first I need to find a better image to use and print it at the right scale.

Results to follow.... I hope.

Dave

Hi Dave,

lost track a little, but here I am again!

Love the drawings for your windows! Maybe the colours are a tad too bright (=modern). Look at the originals...the dress is yellowish cream, yours is bright green f.ex.!

Still, it's up to you! I just compared the original and your rendering!

Cheers

Romain

Romain, it is definitely brighter than the original. I have already passed them on to my girl for play toys. She likes them very much so its all good.

I am looking at another option. we shall see what becomes of it. Either way at the end I will no doubt be putting a wash and or filters on the windows to give them that " I've just been through a war " look. dusty, dirty and dim i imagine.

gotta go. still trying to make progress...

thanks for coming by again, talk to you soon...

Dave

In the midst of the pain I am enduring trying to get the stained glass just right I found this online last week and thought it would make a great diorama concept in the what if category....



Thoughts?

Interesting...and further proof that the Mk1 eyeball is no longer a match for photoshop. Hopefully, nobody out there mistakes this for taking the sacrifice of the guys in the water lightly...

Sorry the shrinky dink did work out for you. I didn't realize you would need to do the black on the opposite side from the colors. I have to confess I was not very successful coming up with any fresh ideas over the weekend.

Hey Mark. Yeah hopefully no one does, as there was no disrespect meant for sure. My dad fought in Korea at the battle of Kap'yong and I have have nothing but the utmost respect for members who have put their lives on the line for the freedoms we enjoy. My three years were spent here at home, so I do not call myself a veteran but I praise their efforts and those of them that are still serving " in country" all over the world.

I am literally building my own windows from scratch now, it seems to be the only way to get it right in my eyes.

Later.

So the trials and tribulations of a middle aged modeller continue for me, and I find myself pretty much starting from scratch again withy stained glass windows.

After numerous attempts with several different products and techniques I found myself both frustrated and angered, both by the results I got with the products I purchased at a fairly high cost for the mini project; and with my inability to attain the image I had in my minds eye for the look of these two tiny little windows in the most conspiquous corner of my diorama.

So I decided to step back an look again at the smallish stone church that occupies such a prominent place on the picture frame I used as a base for this diorama.

I spent hours looking for and studying almost every image on the web for stained glass windows that would be appropriate for the time and place represented here. Honestly, almost all of the really grand cathedrals in the large centers all over Western Europe had huge, elaborate, massively artistic renditions of great Biblical themes. Of the saints of the faith and every depiction of The Christ in all our imagined Glory.

I printed 80 different images, scaled down and full size. I printed them on photo paper, on transparencies, on shrinky dink and on regular bond paper. I was tempted once to print out on parchment, but not having any I was about to use waxed paper from the pantry .... And when I was about to put the sheet in my color laser printer I had second thoughts.

I did try printing a sheet of the regular shrinky dink frosted sheets on my printer, and prayed the while time that I would not melt it into the inner workings of the machine.

I sighed a great sigh of relief when the sheet finally came out after the horrible smell woke my wife up, thinking the house was on fire. No blood no foul we used to say playing Bball, and while the sheet came out a little warped and with some printer skid marks on it, the printer.

I will leave it there for awhile. I have more to say but am just getting set to play for the evening worship at my local church. We don't have stained glass, but it's still a good place to be, as the people here are genuine and sincere, just like I imagine the folks at my little church on the frame would be...

More on that soon

Dave

Ok. Back from church to get back to my story of the church sitting on my dining room table. This is how I see it, having given it quite some thought over the past few days. This is not a large church, built by craftsmen and noblemen or the aristocrats of both the church or society. It is not in Dresden or Nuremburg, nor is it in Koblenz or Colonge. It does not sit on the top of a huge tract of land, and all the streets of the city do not converge at the grand gate in the front of the cathedral.

No. This is a small, local sanctuary built by common folk of a smaller town. It was built by humble people who may not have had an architect of world renown, or a stone mason whose pedigree included a great monument to God, or country.

Nope. My church was built by the people of the land, and paid for by the blood sweat and tears of those same parishioners. They got together and constructed a building much like themselves, humble and unpretentious, not perfect and aligned on all planes but solid and functional. Like its inhabitants would be if it existed in the real world.

And all this brings is back to the windows. Grandiose and elaborate would not suit this congregation. What they would have would be subdued but meaningful and also a small source of pride for them. And I imagine they would be very proud of their windows and put a high value on them as a symbol of their churches diversity and culture.

In a late war Germany, people were well aware of the storm that was brewing and the whirlwind that was coming. Having endured countless nights of bombing by the commonwealth and unending days of the same at the hands of the US Airforce.

They had long ago begun the process of storing away the things in their lives which held the greatest value to them, hoping to save them from the disastrous outcome of the war that was being waged ever closer to their homes. Valuable to each individual and group, like our church congregation.

These things they put in the safest places they could in the hope that when the war ended they could recover them again. I believe this is what the people of the church did with the stained glass windows.

They boxed them up and stored them in the mayors basement, or the furnace room of the local hospital for the duration of the war.

They had too much invested in those windows to just board them up and take the chance they would be ok, both financially and emotionally. Those windows were beacons for the people of their community, and meant to give hope to those in the dark despair of their journey who would walk by them, seeking divine intervention.

They meant almost as much to those people as their own faith did. They were irreplaceable and priceless. So they stored them away. And put up some simple glass in their place, two panels of simple structure and style. Modest and humble like the people of the church.

These are the panels I will install in my church. Not perfect, but perfectly suited for the time an place I have created. I hope you all like the effort I have put into all of this.

I have begun to construct them, here is one of the four panels I am building.



Not complete but in progress.

Dave,
I was afraid it might eventually come to this (had tried to avoid suggesting blasted out windows with just bits around the edges remaining). It really would have been nice, but I certainly understand that at a certian point (like when the hobby becomes more frustration than fun) one just has to say, "Oh, well."

Still I can't help but think if we were to find a compromise between the simple design you began with, and the religious them that would have been appropriate for the time and place there would have to be a way to pull it off.

Sorry if I sound like an armchair quarterback; just really enjoying the opportunity to (hopefully!) assist and encourage.

Mark

Mark you have indeed been a big help and an encouragement to me during this build. I have enjoyed the banter back an forth from everyone who has taken an interest in my build and have tried to incorporate as much as I can when possible.

Keep suggesting things, it makes me examine what I am doing and why, and I can always use more tricks and tips. Even if I don't end up using them this time I around they may become part of my next work. So keep it coming.

I ended up with 30 dollars worth of shrinky dink products which should give hours of fun and enjoyment to my 3 year old daughter and her mommy and I. And now that I remember how it works I remember how much fun it was when we had it when I was a kid.

So all in all it was a good weekend.

See you all in the funny papers...

Dave

Ps, if I knew how to solder in scale I could eventually solder together a framework of a simple religious design out of thin copper wire, which I could then paint black and crazy glue to a panel of frosted styrene sheet, which I could then color with some of the 30 different sharpies I purchased this weekend for the build. For now the old fashioned evergreen quarter round and some Tamiya cement will have to suffice.