Sorry, Rosemary, this is shockingly late: you asked us about plating:

… and we’ve been so busy in the studio, it’s only now that we can sit down and answer your question.

You might plate one piece of glass behind another for several different reasons.

For instance:

1. This is the only way to achieve the colour you want.
2. You want to use silver stain but the coloured glass you’ve chosen just won’t take stain at all.
3. To achieve a particular effect e.g. the drowned Orphelia painted on the piece behind, then blue shaded glass plated on top to represent the watery grave in which she lies.

Thus the up-side is you achieve the precise effect you want.

But plating has its down-sides such as:

1. The risk of condensation in between the plated glass.
2. The increased time to cut, paint, stain, fire and assemble the glass in lead.
3. The added weight.
   

If your plated stained glass forms part of a weather-fronting window, item 1. is serious indeed.

Items 2. and 3. become serious if you plan to plate extensively.

Therefore it’s altogether easier when your plan is to make a small stained glass window which will be framed, for instance, and hung inside against a window.

A decorative panel, not a fitted stained-glass window.

So from his sketch of Our Lady of Walsingham …

David prepared a small water-coloured cartoon:

He cut the glass and painted the trace-lines:

Then strengthened and shaded it, so:

And also plated most of it, sometimes to get the rich, deep colour he wanted, sometimes because the glass would not take silver stain.

The process is:

1. Cut the glass, then paint and stain and fire it each time.
2. After the last firing, check again the pieces are the same size, and grind them if they aren’t.
3. Clean them.
4. Wrap the glass together in copper foil.
5. Lead the glass in deep-hearted lead, then solder and cement as usual.

Here’s a whirlwind overview:

Leaving aside the risk, is plating worth the work?

Only your human eye can make this judgment.

Consider this example from the window we featured in several of our earlier posts this year (e.g. here and here and here).

The painted glass on its own:

Here it is side-by-side with the glass we chose to plate it with:

And the effect:

Sometimes, plating is the only way.

Talk soon.

Best,

P.S. We don’t use plating very often. If we plated often, I’m sure we’d find improvements we could introduce. Please therefore just take this account of what we do right now as a prompt for you to find a new and better way.

P.S. In January, I wrote a post about the undercoat. A colleague from Michigan, Tom N., emailed us with photos and some excellent new information about the technique. Our huge thanks to Tom: we’ll add his contribution soon.