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Foiling Stained Glass

Foiling Stained Glass is an Essential Step When Making Stained Glass

Picture of project foiled

The process of foiling stained glass begins with washing your pieces. Using a small basin filled with water and a small amount of ammonia, dip each piece of glass in the solution and then dry with a lent-free towel.

Make sure to clean and dry the edges as well as the surfaces.

Copper foil is used to wrap the edges of each piece in your design. Copper foil comes in various sizes. When foiling glass, 7/32" copper foil is frequently used. Information on Copper Foil

There are a variety of techniques for foiling glass. Each one provides a slightly different approach. You may want to choose or combine any of these to fit your needs.

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Technique 1 for Foiling Glass

Either by hand or with the use of a table foiler, carefully place copper foil around the edge of each piece.

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It is important to center the edge of your glass on the copper foil. The amount of foil that folds over each side will dictate the width of your finish solder lines.

Once you have covered the edges of a piece of glass, then crimp/press the foil around the glass edges.

You need to burnish the foil on the glass. Basically what this does is insure adhesion of the foil to the glass.

To burnish foil, you can use a simple burnisher or a tongue depressor to press the foil down along the edges of the top and bottom of the glass surface.

Technique 2 for Foiling Glass

This technique is done in conjunction with cutting your stained glass pattern pieces.

More information on Cutting

Instead of cutting all the pieces at one time and then foiling them, this method is done by foiling each piece of glass after it is cut.

Using this technique can eliminate gaps caused by misjudging the thickness of the copper foil.

Each piece is foiled by centering the copper foil on the stained glass piece then burnishing the top and bottom surfaces of the glass.

Once pieces are foiled and re-assembled on your pattern, soldering can begin.

Time to move on to soldering! Learn How to Solder

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