How to trace, blend, shade and flood from a reliable batch of stain which keeps for months

This information on this page is important if you’re new to silver stain.

Or if you only mix your with water or vinegar.

This information is not for people who already mix their stain with other liquids.

Or if you already know how to trace, blend, shade and flood with silver stain.

All other glass painters, please continue – this is really useful to you.

The cost of silver stain

When you “bulk buy” silver stain straight from the manufacturers, it will cost you between US $158 and US $324 a pound (16 ounces), depending on the type you choose.

Which is anywhere between to $9 and $20 an ounce.

Of course when you actually buy it one ounce at a time, maybe you’ll pay a third or more on top, so maybe $12 to $25 an ounce.

An ounce.

So that’s the cost issue.

Silver stain is expensive.

And if you only ever mix it with water or vinegar, you’re pretty much throwing that expensive powder to the four winds.

Not to mention the disappointment when it doesn’t work …

It’s up to you. It’s your life, your work. Do you enjoy the struggle? Really?

The value of silver stain

Silver stain is gorgeous – when properly applied and properly fired.

Improperly applied and improperly fired, it’s as ugly as sin.

What’s more, your piece is pretty much ruined. All that work is wasted. (Unless you go to the bother of using hydrofluoric acid to remove the ruined silver stain …)

But let’s focus now on the good side of stain. Unlike glass paint, it’s transparent. You can use stain to shade white glass into yellow, orange glass into red, blue glass into green.

It’s a joy!

So when I said a moment ago it was expensive, let’s just be clear: nothing’s expensive if it’s worth it, and silver stain – being so beautiful – is definitely worth it.

It’s just that it’s so difficult to use.

One day it works, the next day it doesn’t. What’s going on here?

See, it’s the failure-rate which really makes silver stain “expensive”.

Reduce the failure-rate and improve your techniques, and silver stain is worth it without any shadow of a doubt.

Water and vinegar

Most people mix stain with water or vinegar.

Their failure-rate is fairly high, I hazard to guess.

Nasty ugly “metalling” for instance:

Seen from the outside – this kind of failure is unacceptable and unnecessary – you’ll discover why it happens and how to avoid it

Yet what’s actually worse is that, even when stain works with water or vinegar, there’s still a massive failure to reach stain’s full potential. Its sheer unrivalled beauty.

Can you use water or vinegar to shade and blend your stain?

No.

Or flood?

No.

That’s my point.

Problems with water and vinegar

These are the main problems I remember from my days with water and vinegar (oh, what days of endless frustration they were):

• It’s impossible to shade from light to dark
• It’s really hard to blend
• It’s impossible to mix and store a batch that works reliably for months and maybe years
• It’s difficult to apply smoothly to a specific area; instead you end up applying too much, then picking it out and damaging your lungs with all the dust, not to mention all the stain that’s wasted …
• It’s unreliable because even if you do a test, you can’t use the same batch to do your real piece

What a mess. What a waste of time and money. What a failure to achieve beauty.

But you can change all that.

Here’s the answer.

Silver stain – proven techniques

Information on the correct use of silver stain is scarcer than gold dust. In most books, you’ll be lucky to find more than a paragraph.

Even then, you’ll mostly be instructed in the use of water or vinegar, which as I’ve shown is pretty much pointless.

So David and I decided to remedy this lamentable situation.

I mean, glass painters have been staining glass for the best part of 800 years.

And the introduction of silver stain brought about a huge increase in its potential – for the simple reason you could now include two colours within a single piece of glass.

Freedom!

Seems a shame this knowledge should be lost. And it will be lost if folks continue their unsatisfactory ways with water and vinegar …

That’s why we teach a special course on silver stain.

It’s all online, so you can learn from anywhere in the world and at a time which suits you:

• How to mix a reliable batch of stain that keeps for months and years
• How to find the best firing schedule for your own kiln
• How to trace with stain
• How to flood with stain
• How to avoid picking out and wasting dried stain ever again
• How to shade stain from dark to light
• How to blend two different kinds of stain together
• How to create textures in stain
• The brushes to use, what to use to store your stain, what to use for a palette

The course is here.