With leadlighting the basemetal (lead) melts at the same time as the solder, not like soldering guttering etc.
With leadlighting the basemetal (lead) melts at the same time as the solder, not like soldering guttering etc.
there are plenty of techniques to solve sagging problems in horizontally mounted stained glass panels. the easiest ones are to use steel flat rebar on edge tied to the metal cames as support members.
this is a 4' square piece, made up as 4 panels each 2' square, under a skylight.
You probably aren't going to solder the substrate of the table together and definitely won't be welding your glass. I've seen some tables done like stained glass, they were either cast in plastic with a glass top all laid on a bent wrought-iron type support or had a glass backer and a glass top with metal edging. Can be done and done attractively They were very small, not quite plant stand but smaller than a bar table. The bases could be welded, riveted or bolted together.
As far as your original question about soldering, this is a low temperature process that uses a melted filler metal to bond metals together, the pieces don't melt themselves. With welding, your workpieces melt and either furnish the material themselves for the joint or a similar metal is added as filler and melted along with the work pieces. Generally much higher temperature than soldering, the exception would be lead-burning where lead's melting point is so low that it's more like soldering..
Your stained glasswork isn't going to be self-supporting when laid horizontally, at least if joined with copper foil or lead cane, and will need some sort of base under it to take the weight. Can be wood, too. If a guy was an ace welder and sheetmetal guy, I suppose he could bend up, cut and weld up a design from small steel T-bar, then put cut glass in the pockets and grout it all down. Would be a lot of work, but could be done if a guy was talented enough and motivated. TIG would probably be the process of choice for that. Designed correctly, that could be self-supporting. You'd probably still want a sheet of glass over the top.
There are probably several members here that have machines that could CNC plasma cut the top out of solid plate, then CNC mill the glass pockets, too. Or plasma cut the design into three plates, make a sandwich and skip the milling, two thin plates on top and bottom with smaller holes and the main one to hold the glass in-between. Lotsa ways of doing it, the design is the thing.
Stan
A non-metalworking option is to use glass paints that are available at Hobby Lobby and similar places. They definitely do not look as good as real stained glass but they don't look bad.
The wife had painted a canvas to look like a stained-glass window that she had designed but never made. I got a rectangle of heavy window glass the same size as one of our bedroom windows and replicated that painting as nearly as I could, using glass paints***, and mounted it in the window. She loved it. Unfortunately it self-destructed one day, I don't recall how it broke.
-- Best -- Terry
***because my stained-glass skills suck... :-)
She just _told_ you she loved it, so as to not hurt your feelings, then one day she "accidentally" bumped it with the broom handle. >:->
Cheers! Rich
Well, I don't use a snood, but have a welding jacket made for the purpose, and it has snaps that go high enough in the neck area to protect me up to where the hood covers. So, with that, I'm fine. But, before I got the jacket, I got a burn THROUGH my shirt! The worst parts were around the underarm area, where I guess the sun doesn't shine much, so that skin was totally white and unprotected before. But, my entire chest was bright scarlet for a week. I was wearing a heavy, dark permanent-press shirt that I'd (stick) welded in before with no problem. But, TIG is a completely different kind of UV output.
Jon
I don't think it is different UV, but there is no smoke from the rod coating to adsorb any of the UV. Some shirts will protect you, others seem transparent to UV.
Dan
Yes, I think a flannel shirt might offer fair protection, I seem to recall the one I had that day might have been a thinner permanent-press one. Anyway, that was a SERIOUS burn, worse than any sunburn I ever got, and I have been sunburned badly a few times. So, I will stick with the heavy welding jacket. I don't know what is in it, but it obviously has several layers of heavy stuff inside, between to layers of heavy canvas-like stuff. I do know it gives great protection.
Jon
Unless you're very fair-skinned, I suspect there was something unusual about that shirt. I've been TIG welding for 35 years, including several years welding every day, and plenty of time at 300+ amps joining heavy aluminum. I've never taken any care in my choice of clothing beyond making sure I was covered, and I've never had a UV burn.
I should have added that I don't mean to encourage folks to take risks with too little protection, or to criticize you for being cautious after a very bad experience. My point was that most folks have no problem TIGging in a long sleeved work shirt.
A possible factor:
Huh, that's a new one on me, though if you saw my wardrobe my lack of awareness of fabric brighteners would be no surprise.
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