mechanicalglass.com

Turning a hobby into a business has been an interesting journey so far …. we continue to learn and grow.

When my husband and I started making stained glass pieces together, we just wanted to learn how to make them for ourselves. We thought the hobby would be a great opportunity to do something together. We both enjoy learning new things and decided to give it a try. We liked the variety of sun catchers we’d seen. Especially the glass ones – in different colors and textures of hand made glass with such a variety of hand made styles. If we made them ourselves, we could be creative – pick the designs and colors we wanted, and save money too!

As we learned and practiced and got better at it, we decided to share our hand made stained glass pieces by selling them at the flea market. We started at Rogers Flea Market in east-central Ohio (our space pictured above) and eventually several consistent customers gave us the encouragement we needed to try something else. We started participating in various craft shows in the area close to home. Then, we opened an Etsy store and started selling on-line.

We named our store ‘Mechanical Glass” because my husband is a mechanic and is very meticulous about everything he does!

It takes both of us to make each stained glass piece and we each get to do the steps we enjoy! 

There are 6 distinct steps: 

* patternization

* cutting

* grinding

* foiling

* soldering

* patina

Patternization = finding or creating a pattern, selecting the different glass desired to make the piece, cutting the pattern into pieces and gluing each pattern piece on each different color of glass. 

Cutting = each piece of glass must be scored around each pattern piece and broken from the sheet

Grinding = grind the edges of each piece to match the pattern

Foiling = copper foil is wrapped around the edge of each piece of glass and burnished, then arranged back together

Soldering = all of the individual pieces are soldered together to make one final creation

Patina = a patina is applied to the solder and a hanging string attached to the final piece. 

Given that we’re selling these online now, of course we have to take pictures and post them in our store as well.

This site includes pictures (even before we figured out how to take good ones) of most of the pieces we’ve made – both older ones and some that are available for purchase at our Etsy store. Feel free to share, like re-post and/or comment – we really value your feedback!

Looking for unique and reasonably priced gifts? Check out our Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MechanicalGlass