Viking Ship

Since Christmas I have been building a stain glass panel of a Viking ship for my husband.  It is the largest piece of leaded glass I have ever tackled and the most complicated so it has taken awhile to complete as I have been slowly building up my confidence on tackling each stage of the building process.  I finally finished is a couple of weeks ago and now have it hanging up in our home.

I found a pattern I liked on the internet and made a few modifications.  I added or erased lines that I didn't like.  My husband also wanted the shield to represent the colors of his Regia group from the UK.  Then I took the 8X11 paper to Office max where I had them blow up the pattern to the size I desired.

Next I like to color in my patterns to give me an idea of the glass section I plan to make at the glass shops.  Not  everyone does this step but it helps me a great deal

Next came a trip to the glass shop to choose glass colors.  Then I carefully selected where I wanted each pattern piece be cut from the glass.  

Next I cut out all the pieces making sure they fit.  I had to make additional adjustments to the pattern as this stage

How the piece looked at the half way point of cutting and grinding!

The entire piece is cut out, next step is to lead the piece

This was the hardest part of the project and I ended up breaking two pieces of glass, which made me cry!  I had just  enough sky and boat glass to fix my mistakes

Next came framing where I promptly cut my fingers!  Working with glass is still a challenge.  I had to wait 2 weeks before I could resume my work allowing time for my fingers tips to heal!  

Time to solder all the joints 

And add putty to the lead to make the panel steady and secure the glass.  It also covers up a lot of gaps between glass and lead if you have any!

My husband helped me throughout the building process when I needed it.  Here we are using powder to harden the putty and it also burnishes the lead came lines making them more pewter like in color than the shiny silver.

The tedious part is going over both sides of the panel removing excess putty and then cleaning the entire panel with soap and chemicals to remove excess flux used during the soldering process

How it looks in my stain glass work shop

How it looks in our living room window! The piece is approximately 36in by 26in

We are both very happy with how it turned out.  I made a few mistakes in the making of this piece but  it still looks great.  Next I am working on a panel for a wedding gift for some dear friends this summer!  Then I need to decide what stain glass to do in the other window!