2014 A&S Faire: Day 2

Today I learned I was way off base about the use of the grozing iron. I'm a little embarrassed to write this, but this blog is a place for me to track my findings, sources, projects, etc. I know others read it, and I link others here when something I've found may help them... but at its core it's my own record keeping.  So, today I learned that the grozing iron is not grozing pliers in a different shape.

It wasn't just the name that led me to think this, but a slight underestimation of the tool's capabilities. I understand and understood that the dividing iron acted as a glass cutter and running pliers in one; it creates a score that runs pretty much simultaneously. I thought that the grozing iron must be there for lines that don't quite break, or for glass that is leftover on a breakline. I tested the tool that way, running a score and confirming that, yes, it breaks the score.

However, that's not what gives period glass it's distinctive chewed appearance, and not why the tool is described as nibbling glass. Tonight I cut a few pieces of my panel with the dividing iron and noticed I could only cut some general shapes out, not the exact pieces I planned. I reviewed some notes, sources, and reconstructions from a tourist attraction in the UK and suddenly it clicked.

You are literally chipping away little bits of glass with the grozing iron. It uses brute force to chew bites off the glass, a description that suddenly seems a lot more on the nose when you are looking at all these tiny semi-circles taken out of an edge. I was also surprised to find that the tool is quite versatile. I can tear off large chunks indiscriminately, and I can also scrape slivers off. 

So, today I cut most of one blue/gold border. According to the museum notes these panels were silver stained. It looks rather even and its the entire piece in all of these borders, so I assumed it would be pot metal yellow. I'm trusting the experts, however, that these were stained.

A grozed piece in place

The border, missing two pieces

The picture above shows a side effect of using a dividing iron; There is a lot of uncontrolled cutting and breakage. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get the blue GNA glass I'm using here, and the clear mouth blown is expensive. I don't think I'm going to be able to maintain my goal of extensive period cutting. I will use it whenever I can, but I'm already accepting the fact I will have to use my modern cutter in many places just to avoid wasting hundreds of dollars of glass, some of which I can't even replace if I have to.

I'm saving the little pieces on the corner of the table to potentially make a small batch of vitreous paint. I have a late period formula that calls for iron shavings, which I have on hand. It will make for a fun little experiment. I don't have to worry so much about incompatibility if I am using the same base glass... I hope!

A close up of a piece while I worked on it, showing the characteristic nibbles

All in all today I got a first true appreciation for the work of a medieval glazier. I am making a 1 square foot scaled down version of a segment that would have been 4 square feet. If I do the math, and if memory serves, the entire window would have been 36 square feet. It was one of 5 windows in that portion of the church. One of several dozen windows in that cathedral. 

And they made it with a hot iron rod and a bar with a notch in it, in essence.

Ho-ly { ..... }

The enormity of it boggles my mind. They could do so much with so little in the middle ages.

2014 A&S Faire Project: Day 1

Now that I think I have all of my materials and tools gathered, it's time to get to work!

I will try to add notations and sources later. From my research, the glass artist worked from a "table" that was whitewashed, and the pattern drawn directly on it. There are financial records showing the glazier hiring artists to draw their pattern onto the table for them. I do have a sister-in-law who is a professional artist, but rather than bother her, I decided to trace the design I want onto the board. But, I wanted to do it in a period manner too.

The "creative" category of our faire criteria threw me for a while. Researching period practices, we can show that glaziers would reuse the same cutlines on a table for different windows. I have chosen a specific cutline from a grisaille window segment in a Norman catehdral. I'm going to paint it with a floral motif from a different contemporaneous grisaille in the same cathedral, and use a border inspired by a third. The end design should look like it could have come from the same time and place (and building!)

I started with a large board I had around the house. I white washed it and placed it on my dining table to begin working. It was inspected and improved by Scheherazade ("Zod"), my cat.

I placed my pattern onto the board, grabbed a pin from my sewing kit... and started poking it. Now, this method is not one I researched personally (my library is not focused on scribal arts) but was described to me by multiple highly-learned scribe friends. [See Lessons Learned, below, for a note on these pins!]

This was both more and less tedious than I expected. Right when I reached a point where I really thought unkind things, I also realized I was finished with the pin. It hurt my hand quite a bit, pushing that pin into wood. The thought occurred to me it might be easier to have a handmade pin like what Roana or Ercc makes. They are a bit larger and I suspect stronger. Sometimes this pin was bending more than I was comfortable with as I pushed. I imagined it snapping and going into my finger (been there, done that). Fortunately, it didn't.

The hole-y template

I then rubbed the leadlines-to-be with charcoal

As promised, the dots and charcoal were left behind on the board.

I then played connect-the dots...

The traced cutline looked a bit irregular. On further exam... the original panel was irregular. No problem there, then!

Now, I have a whitewashed board, a cutline on it, and my tools ready. I got excited, grabbed the glass, and got to work. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. The medieval procedure was to trace my desired cut line "with an emery point" before taking the dividing iron to it. I forgot that part and jumped right in with the iron. As a result, it didn't follow the path I needed. Rather than just waste the opportunity however, I grabbed my camera. Here is video I took of the dividing iron doing it's job. I did initially have to use a little bit of water to get it started, but after that it followed the heat well:

I removed the background nose of the "How It's Made" marathon and replaced it with something a little more.... on topic.

Before anyone asks, the white material on the rod is from absent-mindedly setting a blackhot iron onto the pattern table. It burned and picked up some paint.

Since I demonstrated the dividing iron on tape, I decided to do a quick video of the grozing iron too. I had a segment of glass that I scored but which was not cleanly broken. The grozing iron takes it right off.

[Edit: Movie deleted! I was an idiot! See the post that follows on Day 2, I kind of misunderstood how a grozing iron was supposed to work until I used it in production...]

I didn't have any clever music for this one, so you get 23 seconds of How It's Made.

Lessons Learned:

The wood used for the table can have an impact. This had hard bands that were difficult to push a pin into. Estelle de la Mer has informed me of a better alternative and provided a picture, of a handmade tool she uses for ruling in her scribal work:

Don't forget the emery point path! I shall find out today how different that makes the process.

As I already knew, a larger dividing iron will hold more heat and make this process easier with it's extended working time. That will be rectified later!