Metals
Zinc is a popular material for framing
copper foiled or leaded glass panels. It
is stronger than lead – up to eight times.
It gives a feeling solidity to the edges of the panel.
However, it
does have some disadvantages. It is
difficult to patina evenly and obtain the same colour as patinaed solder. It resistance to progressive corrosion is
weaker than lead. It requires special tools to fit around curves, making it
best for rectangular panels. It does need
a saw to cut evenly, but so do a lot of the stronger metals. A look at other options is worthwhile.
The
strongest option is stainless steel. This is difficult to cut and has special
welding requirements, so is only useful in large and high corrosion installations.
Mild steel is widely available and cheap. In certain circumstances – mainly small, thin
profiles – it can be soldered. The most
secure joining is done with welding.
This requires equipment that stained-glass workers do not usually
have. However, there are a large number
of metal workers that can to the work for you.
Brass is more expensive than mild
steel. It is an alloy of copper and tin
and so can be soldered with the tools we normally use. It is about half the strength of stainless steel,
but three times the strength of zinc.
The tin content leads to a better patina result than zinc.
Copper is up to twice the strength of zinc,
but the price fluctuates more than zinc.
It can be soldered. It requires different patina solutions than used for
solder.
Aluminium is the same strength as zinc, but
requires different joining methods as aluminium welding is a specialist
activity. Still, it will work on
rectangular items with screws at overlapping joints.
More
information on the relative strengths of various metals is given in a post
on metal strengths.
Strengthening lead came
Lead is weaker
than lead but can be bent to conform to curves and indentations for irregular
perimeters. If copper wire is
incorporated and attached to the foiled glass, the soldering of the lead came
to the joints at the intersections of the solder lines and the coper/came combination
will provide greater strength than the zinc alone.
When wanting
to strengthen the perimeter of rectangular or shaped perimeter leaded panels,
you can use 10mm “H” lead came soldered as usual to the whole piece as an alternative to soldering the wire to the panel. Run the copper wire in the open edge of
the “H”. Pull the wire tight at the
bottom and sweat solder at each corner.
Run the wire to the top on each side, where you can make a loop for
attaching hanging wires and sweat solder the wires there too. Then close the two leaves of the lead with a
fid until they come together forming a single straight line. If you want, a “U” or “C” edging came can be
soldred to the outer edge of the "H" came to cover the line created by folding the leaves.
This post
gives more detail about the process of incorporating copper into the perimeter
of a leaded panel.
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