For Ideas:

Please visit one of the below pages to see groupings of creations and ideas. Feel free to contact AMW with your own images to serve as a genesis for your fabrications.

Current Projects on the Bench

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Project Underway – Strongest Bird Feeder Ever 2

Well the “Strongest Bird Feeder Ever” is complete, and the little birdies love it.  What next?  The key to fabricating is to always improve.  Having done a project later fitted with Stained Glass by others and liking the way it turned out, I started getting ideas of how to integrate stained glass with more projects.

It can’t really be that hard to do stained glass…..Can It?  Well let me tell you, stained glass using the copper foil technique lends itself to a traditional hand fabricated look, but it is not easy.  Kudo’s to those who make this their profession.

That said, time to dive into learning a new skill.  First I need a design and a goal.  I wanted to play off of the design from the previous bird feeder, to use the things I learned from that project, but I also wanted to integrate the color and design of the stained glass.  My hope is to let the bird feeder weather naturally so the steel takes on a light rust coating, like it has been there forever; while the stained glass retains its glimmer and color.

This design plays off of some of the design elements I have already created and prototyped for vine trellises.  Since this prototype will sit close to the vine trellis, I will let the glass mimic the insets of the trellis.

The next step is to learn how to do stained glass.   This is really not as easy as it looks.  I am far from an expert, but I have got to the point were I can cut the glass reasonably well, and lay a fairly good bead of solder in the joints.  What is the hardest part of the process?  I would have to say the edges.  Getting a bead on the edge without the molten lead rolling off and hitting me on the leg has proved to be quite a challenge.  I am still experimenting with things and have not yet given up.  I did get to the point where I could complete the two panels that will go in the bird feeder.