hey look at this thing i finished

You know what the problem is with the wingin' it plan?

No wait, scratch that, there are no problems with the wingin' it plan, it is, I'm told, what winners do.

You know what's interesting about the wingin' it plan? Due to the nature of it, it is impossible to predict where it will go. If there is no set end point, then how do I know when to stop? A good example is writing a paper for school. Given that I'm impossibly self critical, I could probably revise a paper endlessly (well, if I knew how to revise better that is) but it has to stop at some point and so turning the paper in becomes the definitive end point. I have an artist friend who says that a piece of his art is not finished until it has made it to it's final home. I always liked that idea. I assume he could probably endlessly tweak his drawerings (I'm not of the impression he does, but he COULD) but it has an end point. So what about when I make things for no reason? What about when I make a stained glass window of an ass, just because I think it's funny?

When we last left our intrepid stained glass maker he had completed the minimum amount of work for the window to be considered done. For reference:

Now, I wasn't entirely sure where to go from here, but I had some ideas. I mentioned at the end of the original post that there were some finishing chemicals I wanted to use. The first was Patina. Patina, in this setting, doesn't refer to the appearance, rather it's the blanket name for a group of chemicals that are used to create an artificial patina. I feel like it would make more sense to call the product artificial patina, but what do I know. As I understand it, it's made from equal parts acid and magic. There are many varieties covering a number of different types of metal, but as far as lead based solder you can get patina that will turn your solder copper or black. I would have liked a wider range of color choices, but still this meant that now I could have three different line colors, which was terribly exciting to me. The layout that made the most sense to me was to make the crack black to imply shadow, make the skin edges copper as that would be pretty similar to the glass and then keep the lines on the underwear silver.

Working with patina is pretty simple if you know what you're doing. It's really as simple as just dipping a brush into it and brushing on where you want the color changed. The color change is pretty instantaneous, but additional brushing can help. One thing that was not apparent to me was to get really good color you need to get a wire brush and go to town on the solder. It needs to be damn shiny before applying the patina. I did the black first as it was a much smaller area.

Worked pretty great, I was pumped. Doing the "skin" was far more problematic. The copper, I've found, is much more finicky, you really need to have a clean surface for it to work well. On top of that, remember when I said the color change was pretty instantaneous? Well after you apply patina you get a cloth rag and wipe off any excess, if you're not careful and you just barely touch a section you didn't want color on, it'll still change enough to be noticeable. Infuriating. I had to scrape off the patina and try again at least twice. Ended up pretty good though.

It's a little hard to tell in that picture since you apparently can't click to zoom in on pictures any more in blogger, but even at a distance I think you can see the difference in color. The other thing I wanted to do was go over it with some finishing compound. Now, this was something sold specifically for stained glass, but I'm not sure if there's anything about it that was special for this. As near as I can tell it's just wax. You cover the window with a light film, then when it dries to a haze you buff it to a high shine. It was really easy and while it's not an incredibly noticeable effect (so not noticeable I didn't deem it worth a picture) it gives it a nice consistent shine. Also, I guess it stops the solder from tarnishing.

The other thing I wanted to do was come up with some way to display it. You may recall at the end of the last past I talked about how my new soldering technique was not ultimate. The nice thing about solder is it re-melts pretty easy, I assume not an infinite number of times, but the one time was all I needed. After painstakingly going over the whole thing again it felt pretty damn sturdy. I felt pretty confident that I could attach a chain or a string or something and hang it without fear that it would fall apart and fall into a shattered pile of dreams. But, there was a problem. In the original post I threw out the idea of making a backlit shadowbox. I didn't have a very compelling reason for that, I think it popped into my head as I was writing the post, so I put it in there. Once it had manifested as such though, it stuck around in my head for awhile. I was lying in bed, I think the very night I posted that in fact, couldn't sleep for some reason, and I figured out how to make it real.

Of course there were nuts and bolts issues. Carpentry is not a skill I am in possession of. I did, however, know that a router was going to be necessary to make the grooves in the wood. I went to the local hardware stores and quickly decided all their routers were too expensive. I needed to goto Harbor Freight.

Harbor Freight, if you're unaware, is a tool store that sells cheap tools, like, really cheap tools. Sure that pretty much necessarily means you're sacrificing quality, but being mainly a hobbyist I don't always need tools that will last a lifetime. When I'm just making this shit up as I go and come under the impression I need a certain tool, I'd rather just by a cheap version and if it turns out to be something I can't live without, I'll upgrade later. The problem with Harbor Freight is that I should never be allowed in there unsupervised. I could pretty easily talk myself into buying half their stock. I came for a router and some cheap clamps and left with a router, a whole lotta cheap clamps, a multimeter, some loupes, some glue and a pin vise, which is so fucking sweet I'm not even sure what to say about it. That, I realize seems not that overboard, but it was a struggle.

Then it was off to Lowes to get some wood. I went with aspen as it was the first wood I found that was in the dimensions I wanted (1x4 or something, I don't remember anymore). Back at home I had the wood, I had the router all I needed now was to magically learn how to use a router. Hmm. Something I've noticed about tools from Harbor Freight is that their owners manuals are for shit. Luckily it seemed like a simple enough tool, just jam it in the wood and make a straight line. So that's what I did!

Apparently I only took one picture of the routed wood (is that the right terminology?). The idea was the top and bottom pieces would have a groove along their entire length and the window would stick out a quarter inch or so, then the side pieces would have a groove that ended a quarter inch or so from the edge so that when the pieces were put together it would be seamless. That was the idea anyway. The problem with these things only existing in my head and sub par measuring is that I run into some problems, more on that in a bit.

All the pieces were cut and route, I sort of fit them around the window and it seemed to match up just right, so I was feeling pretty good. I decided I wanted to paint them, because....I don't know. The thought process was if I painted it white then it would resemble the color of my normal window frames and would almost look like it was one (not that I had, or have, any intention of displaying it). I had some white spray paint laying around, but quickly found out that my new spray pant technique was not ultimate. Luckily there was a bucket of paint in my closet that had been inexplicably left here by the previous tenants, so I bought me a paintbrush! Came out pretty good.

SURE IS WHITE!

The plan was to clamp a side and and end together to make an L, then screw those together, then go from there. I think it probably would have worked fine if I'd done a better job sanding the ends. Since they didn't sit perfectly flat though it ended up making an acute angle instead of a right angle. Not such a big deal since the angle wasn't *that* far off. You know what was a big deal? This:

That's what's known as a zoh noes! moment. I have no idea how my non exact measurements didn't work out, but there's no crying in stained glass window backlit shadowbox making. After firing the router back up it was pretty quick work to just deepen the groove. Of course, shocker of shockers, there was a similar problem when I went to put the other end on.

Same process to fix that. Couple more screws and the box was done except that.....

THE SEAMS LOOKED LIKE SHIT. GODAMNIT. WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST BE FLUSH! Why oh why do artists have to suffer so. /sigh. At least it seemed to be an easy fix, just get some plaster and cover it up. So that's what I did!

I was now in possession of a stained glass window framed in a nice little box. All that was really left was to add some lights. From the start of the project I had decided I was going to go with some cold cathodes. I had modded my xbox 360 a few years ago (retro post forthcoming!) and had looked into using some in that so I had a bit of knowledge to go off of. I bought two twenty inch lights, one for the top and one for the bottom. My dream was that this thing would be reallllllly bright, a shining beacon unto the lord if you will. I was a little underwhelmed, but still.

Everything about that delights me. It's somewhat hard to tell from the picture, but given how transparent the blue parts are, the lack of a back meant you could see right through the thing, wasn't really what I wanted. I got some paper that they put on picture frames. Double sided tape and some precise xacto trimming got me this:

So the final step, displaying it. I was terrified to hang this up as it was now pretty heavy. I spent some time walking around the Hobby Lobby framing department to see if they had anything that seemed especially compelling. What I found was the perfect hang system. It, apparently, is what professionals use and can hold up to fifty pounds. I felt I had to buy it as, I am a professional and would hate to make the label out to be a lier.

This brings us somewhat full circle, the whole wingin' it thing. I had now spent quite a bit of time on something that I had no real intention of ever displaying in my apartment. On top of that it seemed to lack commercial

appeal. I don't know though, I feel like I could see it in a bar. Maybe Cheeks? They're an ass bar right? I bet it'd look something like this.

OH GLOWING ASS, YOU'RE THE ONLY LIGHT IN MY WORLD.

Reminds me of a poem I once heard:

making your way in the world today

takes everything you've got

taking a break

from all your worries

sure would help a lot

wouldn't you like to get away?

sometimes you wanna go

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAAAA-AAAAME
AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GLAD YOU CAAAA-AAAAME

you wanna be where you can see

troubles are all the same

you wanna be

where everybody knows your name

you wanna go where people know

people aren't all the same

you wanna go

where everybody knows your name.

As always, your making of gallery, featuring bonus shots of the "bar scene." It was pretty hard, the picture was supposed to capture a sense of desperation but then also a glowing ass. Tragically I'm a terrible photographer. Also it's hard doing tripod shots apparently. Also I don't seem to photograph well. Also my table makes for a shitty bar. Feel free to select any of those compelling reasons for any dissatisfaction you might have.