Transom Window

This is quite a departure from my usual style, but there were several interesting problems to figure out along the way. The window, which is installed in a transom over my parents’ bathroom door, measures about 10″x36″ and is about 3/8 inch thick.

Mom and Dad weren’t entirely comfortable with a move to the northwest, mostly because of the rain, and they wanted more light in their master bath. My brother in law opened the area above the door and left a hole for a 10×36 window.

The piece took about 30 days, start to finish (well, I did a lot of my day job and other glass projects during that time).

I set it up in two panels, a back panel with 6mm Tekta, with elements fired on both sides to give some dimensions to the piece, and 3mm front panel, again with elements on both sides.

The whole idea with this piece was to give the effect of an overgrown garden full of agapanthus (lily of the nile)–a flower Mom and I really liked from our Fresno days. Since it’s viewed from beneath, I wanted it to look as though things got lighter and brighter up there. I used quite a bit of coarse coral tinted frit to subtly warm the greyish light coming into the bathroom. I added some irid and dichroic–but not much–for sparkle.

The panels required three firings apiece, with a final firing to fuse the panels together. The tricky part, however, was getting the daggone thing in the kiln. I can now definitively state that 10×36 is the absolute size limit for a glass panel in a Skutt GM1414 kiln.

It was so close to the elements on the sides, in fact, that I was really worried about annealing and cracking issues. Fortunately, Bullseye Glass’ BEcon glass artist conference happened right in the middle of working on this, and I had my pick of many really knowledgeable glass artists for advice.

Richard LaLonde provided the best hints. He suggested that a panel that long and narrow would be likely to bow as the edges cooled and contracted faster than the center, putting the piece at least in danger of warping or, worse, causing it to crack. He advised me to add a “relax” cycle to the firing, taking the glass briefly below the strain point, then moving it 50 degrees above strain point and holding for a half hour, to allow the glass to relax into its final position.

Must have worked–the final piece was strong, without cracks, and perfectly straight. The final poked through its dam on one side and bled a bit, easily fixed with the Alpha Felsetti grinder (10 minutes and an 80-grit diamond wheel worked wonders).

Transported it to Mom and Dad’s, hefted it into place…and discovered that transom openings aren’t always straight (surprise, surprise). Little more work with the Alpha, though, and it was fine. View a shot of the window in place.

So…I’m on the hook with my sister’s family to produce a couple more of these for the house they’re building. Design’s to be determined (I think one of them will have pumpkins in it), but they’ll be coming up in the next year.

Aside from that, back to something a little less representational….

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