Thursday, August 28, 2014

Book Hoard: Stained Glass Primer Volumes 1 and 2

While teaching "Glass Cutting - All Levels" with Molly at Pennsic, she mentioned two books she recommends for new glass artists, different from the one I usually recommend. I grabbed them this week to look over.

Stained Glass Primer (Vol 1): The Basic Skills
Peter Mollica
4/5
All around an excellent book, in my opinion. As Molly had told our students, it IS dated. He described, at depth, the creation of leaded panels, and gives an overview of copper foil technique. His glossary is worth a read in it's own right. The dated portions are the tools and chemistry (well, and the typewritten text); he uses tools that are very traditional, and I think most people learning today use newer versions (lead cutting pliers instead of a lead knife, for example). He also references oleic acid as a flux, which works fine but is greasy and hard to clean up. More modern chemistry provides fluxes that are much easier to clean. The technique was all good, however! I appreciate the fact that he prefaces the book with "There are many alternatives, but this is what works for me" in essence. A skinny but packed book, I read it in under an hour.


Stained Glass Primer (Vol. 2): Advanced Skills and Annotated Bibliography
Peter Mollica
4/5
Also an excellent book. This one covers painting and staining heavily (Me being me, I noticed his date for the discovery of silver stain was 100+ years late. Research is a LOT easier for me today than it was for him in the 70s though!). He covers actually installing your window, which I've never seen before and, frankly, has always been a mystery for me. I've never tried to fit an existing embrasure because I had no idea how to do it and no one seems to cover it. He also discusses reinforcing, saddlebars, etc that is of definite interest to a SCAdian glassworker. He gives a recipe for easel wax but I'm not going anywhere near it...

He has some interesting books in his bibliography. I look forward to ordering some of them, too! Have to make Amazon Prime worth it.

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