Bring art into your home by dressing up even the most no-frills of ceiling fans with the added dimension and color of stained glass lights. Although many stained glass lamps use thousands of pieces in their intricate designs (Tiffany lamps, for example), you do not have to be an expert stained glass artist to create a work of beauty. You will be putting in some time on the project as you revamp the lights that come with your fan, but looking at the hues and ever-changing patterns cast around the room will make it worth your while.
Instructions
1. Stained glass ceiling fan lights can be simple colored panels.
Draw the pattern on your glass light cover using a marker. Place the tracing paper around the light cover. To make the paper lie flat, you’ll need to cut the paper into pie-shaped sections and tape it on with the small, pointed end at the top. Draw the pattern on the paper, mark the glass grain direction using an arrow, then trace and number each piece. Cut the pattern pieces using foil shears.
2. Glue the pattern pieces to the glass using rubber cement and keeping the grain arrow on the pattern in line with the glass grain. Remove excess rubber cement by rubbing your thumb along the edges of the pattern.
3. Score around the pattern with your glass cutter, applying firm, steady pressure. To remove the scored (cut) piece from the glass sheet, use runners to break the long, straight lines you've scored and grozers to break away small bits of glass or curved angles a little bit at a time. Grind each piece using a power grinder.
4. Mosaic designs can bring interesting texture to your fan lights.
Wrap copper foil around the edges of the glass, making sure there is an equal amount of overhang on both sides. Burnish the foil with the fid or burnishing tool. You can find tool like fids (a plastic tool used to smooth foil, flatten a dented channel of lead and remove excess putty from the corners of a project), burnishing tools (wooden tool shaped somewhat like a light bulb used to flatten - burnish - foil on glass), soldering irons, solder, flux (a chemical used to adhere lead solder to foil) and grinders at stained glass supply shops.
5. Place the foiled pieces on your and glue into place with E3000. Make sure the glue does not seep through the copper foil seams.
6. Apply flux to the copper foil and tack solder. Run beads to solder the entire copper foil seam.
7. Diffused light from stained glass will cast interesting patterns on your ceiling.
Clean the light thoroughly with dish soap and water, scrubbing the soldered seams with steel wool to remove the flux. Apply black patina to the soldered seams. Clean the shade again, polish the glass and mount the glass light on your ceiling fan.
Tags: copper foil, glass light, stained glass, your glass, Draw pattern