Morning all
The round window in my workshop is currently still plugged with 400mm insulation while we decided what to do within it. Wife and I both had the same idea of a stained glass panel, and she wanted to design and buy it for me as a Birthday/Christmas present, but as with everything to do with this workshop, life gets in the way of speedy progress (no jokes required Andy...
).
Life has continued to be somewhat turbulent recently and the wife is currently seeking new employment, so belts have been tightened to compensate. Despite that she still want to go ahead with it to help get the workshop completed.
With the above in mind, and also her desire to re-kindle her creative side (she's very artistically talented but because of work, kids and life being generally busy she has neglected herself in that respect) so we were sat a few weeks ago, watching telly and chatting, and I said "Instead of paying nearly £700 for someone to make and frame it to your design, why not see if there's a stained glass course on anywhere nearby and do it yourself. That way you'll get what you want, learn a new craft and go some way to getting your creativity back on track?".
We sat idly browsing on our devices to see what there was and luckily there's a weekend long course not 10 miles from us, so she got in touch with them to see whether what she wanted to do was achievable. I am a born and bred Mancunian (with some of my youth spent in Scotland but my formative years as a Manc) and have always loved Manchester Town Hall with its worker bee symbolism.
After the bombing of the Manchester Arena a couple of years ago the bee took on an even more symbolic role as a sign of togetherness and determination, with tattoo parlours offering free bee tattoo's (free being £20 fee with all monies being paid to the charities helping with the aftermath), bumper stickers and all sorts being displayed as a sign of Mancunian defiance against terror (I know none of that will stop the issues, but that's what we as humans do).
So back to the window, she decided she wanted to do a bee and had a design in mind. When she contacted the course leaders to discuss the possibility, the lady she spoke to couldn't have been more helpful and said, excitedly, that the girl running the course LOVED bees and would be delighted to help my Mrs achieve what she wanted! Bingo.
Fast Forward a few weeks and she's doing the course this weekend. She asked me to get her the measurements of the opening, what size the panel should be etc, so she can scale everything.
So, the opening is a little rough and varying between 810mm - 840mm at its narrowest/widest points. My plan, and this is where I need your help and advice, was to make a frame for the outer skin of the wall, and put a standard DGU into that, then just a simple frame in the inner wall skin to house the stained glass.
So what challenges are there with that? Some of my thoughts below:
1. Condensation etc between the stained glass and DGU? - Could be mitigated with vents in the inner frame?
2. Maximising the light (minimising light loss) by keeping the inner frame as light as possible - Thought on this was to make the inner frame 800mm dia * 30-40mm thick * 50mm deep then rebate out a 20mm rebate all the way round the inner edge to hold the glass, then a small bead to hold it in place.
So, can you think of :
1. Any other issues with my proposal of a double window setup?
2. do the frame dimensions look okay? Too big? Too small?
3. Anything else I've missed or any other suggestions?
Cheers
Mark