Early November Updates (Part 4)

I mentioned that I started to install the bathroom vanity, so I thought I would share photos of that. It may hep you if you're thinking of installing a similar piece.

The vanity will need to slide into place over plumbing pipes and also carefully fit between a door casing and a baseboard. This involves a lot of careful measuring and cutting, and a definite "measure twice, cut once" attitude.

Normally, when we fit something into place around existing mouldings, we will trace the outline against the existing trim (on the wall) and carefully cut that to shape so that we can slide our cabinet or moulding against it. If both pieces are flat, you can usually install your pieces more easily, but the above applies mostly when you have two non-matching "fancy" profiles that need to blend together in a corner.

In my case, I have 2 flat pieces, and I decided to just cut my toe-kich moulding off the cabinet. Normally this would be a separate piece nailed on separately, but I didn't have the accurate tools to do a good corner joint, and I put mine directly on the cabinet.

Section removed to allow for the 3/4" thick baseboard:



This shows how it will look (with a piece of 3/4" scrap wood acting as the baseboard):



On the other corner, I had to notch a 3/8" portion with a rounded upper corner to allow for the plinth block of the door casing. I could just remove the door casing and block, and cut those to fit around the vanity instead (which would be easier), but this allows me to (God forbid) change the vanity more easily later, if I ever decide I don't like it anymore, or if it got horribly damaged (or something).

Yeah it was a huge mess.

Hard maple (aka Rock Maple) is **NOT** easy to cut and sand with crappy tools. This is when I found out that my belt sander is not very good. I tried to route-off as much as possible and do the rest (up to the line) with the sander.



Again, careful measuring is important, otherwise I'll have a lot of gap-filling to do with silicone.



That's as far as I got. I need to move the hot water pipe over, and extend/redo the PVC before I can do the next step, which will be to drill the holes in the bottom of the cabinet (which is often the part where things can go really wrong).

Lastly is the exciting news that I've been saving for last!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I went to Ottawa over the weekend (I got back yesterday). I was there to help a friend fix a few things around her place, and to do some shopping.

Here's a photo of my haul. You'll see why I'm so happy/excited!



A MATCHING GRILLE AND ANTIQUE LIGHT FIXTURE! And both were amazing deals!

Here's a break down of what I got:

- Antique cast-iron grille (a match to my existing one, and this one has the working thumb latch) 50$! This was a steal. The place where I bought it is an antique lighting and salvage store. The lady said that it's a common pattern (thus the cheap price). She actually had another 6 or 7 identical ones.
- Antique light fixture (there's a story behind this, see below)
- Mix of new and antique butterfly hinges.
- 2 lock sets that are near perfect matches for some of my other "good" ones. 10$ each
- 4 antique door knob stems (very hard to find, and only 1$ each)
- Set of 15 small cast brass handles. 5$
- Photo album 3$
- New (bound) sketch book 15$
- Set of 6 antique reproduction knobs. 30$
- Stained glass supplies ~180$, including:
- 6 sheets of coloured glass (wrapped in newspaper)
- Solder
- Lead antiquing solution
- Fid (the red plastic tool for lead work)
- Lead came (this is the long cardboard box which has 14pcs of lead for the office built-in doors). This was 120$ of the overall 180$ mentioned above.
- Marina and the Diamonds CD

All the old hardware (lock sets, spindles, hinges, and the set of 15 handles) all came from a trip to the East end Habitat for Humanity ReStore (in Ottawa). It was an absolutely amazing place. I saw so many things I'd want to buy, but with no easy way to get them home. They had a good variety of antique wood doors, many old exterior doors (some Victorian ones, even), they had old windows, too. One was a single sheet of antique glass nearly 4'x4'! They also had a huge selection of tiles, old lighting (not old enough for my house), and hardware. If I would have had more time, I would have gone to the West end ReStore as well.

Alright, the story behind the light fixture is quite fun and amusing. Right near the antique lighting/salvage place, is a large antique store. I was in there looking around at all the beautiful old furniture, and as I was leaving, a lady came in. She was talking to the shop owner and asking him if he would be interested in buying 3 old light fixtures from her.

One was this gorgeous brass 1920s fixture, and the other two were old wall sconces. The shop owner (who mainly deals in furniture) had no interest in them, and he thought they were in bad shape, so she left. I commented (to the owner) about a lovely old Empire sofa by the door that was sold, and then left to quickly catch up to the woman.

I asked her how much she wanted for the oval fixture, and she dug it out of her book bag. She said 20$. My jaw nearly dropped and I said "Sure!". We had a short conversation where I explained that I had an old house with this style of fixture, and she was very happy to be selling it to someone who would use it. She asked if I'd also want to buy the sconces, but I said no (since I have no where to use them and they're not a matching style to the other fixtures I have), but I recommended she go to another antique lighting place that would likely buy them.

Here is another photo with 2 (new/crappy) shades:

"Stained Glass" First Piece Done

Alright, for my first attempt, and using only painted glass rather than the real thing, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The part that I thought would be the easiest for me, was actually the part that gave me the most trouble: the soldering.

First off, I didn't have the right solder, and of course no one in Cornwall sells lead-bearing solder anymore, so I had to use old lead solder that I had on hand, but with rosin core (which I will NEVER use again for this). With the combination of heat and flux, I ended up getting a whole bunch of sputters of little bits of rosin, which left ugly brown spots everywhere. Some can be flaked off, but most are stuck in place pretty well. I tried a few solvents on them, but they don't really come off easily.

The other problem I had, was that I didn't have the right kind of tip on my iron, and the heat setting kept fluctuating on me randomly. This left me with ugly joints. I ended up cheating and using a mini-torch to make the joints flow nicely.

HOWEVER, using the torch is risky, and I ended up shattering one of my glass pieces. I had to re-cut, re-paint, and re-bake a new one. I also scorched the paint in one small spot.

In this close-up you can see the brown dots and a bit of residual rosin near the joints that I couldn't completely remove (after heavy cleaning):



Despite all the issues, the finished piece shows well.



In other related news, I was able to flatten-out the old stained glass panel, and take a tracing of it.



In the meantime, I've been working on the "shop hutch" some more.

Learning Something New

I've wanted to teach myself how to do traditional stained glass for a while. After I picked up that beautiful old panel, I decided I'd go ahead and invest in the basic tools to get started.

I just recently came back from a trip to Ottawa, where I bought some coloured and textured glass to repair the panel, but I will need to go back for more lead came (the lead strips that hold all the pieces together), and possibly for a few extra tools.

For now, I bought only:
- Good quality glass cutter
- Running pliers (used to snap a scored piece of glass)
- Dyke (lead nippers)

- Lead came (to make some practice pieces)
- Coloured glass (mentioned above)

This afternoon I dug-out some old sheets of glass from storage (just plain new glass) to start on a practice piece.

I looked on the web through hundreds of photos, and I decided to copy this panel, with just a few small modifications:



I decided on 10" x 10", since I didn't want the panel too big, nor too small. I might end up hanging it in a window.

The first step was to quickly sketch out my pattern, which is just one strip 1 1/4" around, and another at 3/4" around, leaving a 6" square in the centre. I decided to add small corner blocks to the design after playing around on the computer to see how it might look.

Here I have all my pieces cut, leaving just a small allowance around the edges for the lead came. Start to finish, probably 30-40 minutes.



A few random freehand (somewhat complicated) practice curves. I can already tell that cutting the pieces won't be the issue, it will be about learning to control the cutter to get it to follow a line. It tends to want to do its own thing, or slide.



Here the pieces (including the centre square) have been painted with some of those glass paints I picked up last summer at a yard sale. I really like how the red turned out. The centre is supposed to be frosted glass, but it turned out pretty clear. These will need to be baked in the oven after 24hrs drying time (even though they are touch dry after a few hours). I'm hoping that the baking process will enhance the frosted look.



This part was rather fun. I just printed a life-sized pattern of the design above, and then painted it freehand (over the pattern) with a custom mixed light grey. Black was used for the highlights. This took less time than you might think.



Painting done, and left to dry.





Once it was dry enough to handle, I decided to do the leading. I don't have a lead stretcher, so I made do with my vice and a pair of pliers, which worked fine. For those who don't know, the lead came needs to be slightly stretched out before you use it. They come in 6' lengths, and generally you stretch it about an inch.

90% done:



I'm pretty proud of my joints. I actually really enjoy working with the lead. It cuts like butter, and intricate joints/mitres are easy to snip.



The panel is pretty much done and ready to be soldered, but I will need to take it all apart and bake the glass paint before I can do the soldering. I also don't have any solid-core solder, so I'll have to go pick some up. Seriously, I have about every other type of solder you can imagine.



That's it for today, but I'll have dozens of new photos to add soon.