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2-7-99 - I completed the arches for the the main dome. Currently they are floating above the surface. When it's finished it will have a connecting piece, to attach the arch to the base.
Problems: Everything went smoother then I would have thought. You see the mold I used was a rubber ball. I tried to pick the roundest one I could find. It was actually very round. The dome it self was only about an 1/8" - 1/4" off in certain directions. The glass pushed out the measurements a little. The arches themselves actually fit on very well. I was afraid that I'd have to redesign the arches to fit the curve of the dome. Didn't have too. There are some spaces between the dome and the arches. I did predict this however, and excused it as all right. You see the main dome really isn't there. In reality (if this were a real building), the arches would hold up the second story, and in effect you would be really looking at the sunset. In other words, there isn't any walls on the dome itself.
Originally, I wanted the arches to match the rest of the glass I chose (which is a mottled tan Uroboros). I'm using Uroboros tan mottle opalescent, it should give me a good color variance for the bricks on the main walls. But I didn't have enough glass for the arches. And I didn't want to take the chance of using up my only supply. So I chose another glass. I was going to use Spectrum's tan opalescent, but I looked around and couldn't find any, could have sworn I had some, somewhere. Hmmmm... What to use... I found a different color, it was a strip of Spectrum fleshy tan dense wispy. I bought that at a glass sale a few years back. It was about 6" wide and about 20" long. I didn't think it would make it to the end of the cutting. This was the color I liked out of about 6 other colors.
I needed to cut everything very carefully, it was my only piece of glass in that color. First I cut the tops of the arches with the strip cutter. Very carefully breaking out the 1" strips. Then I cut everything into four set's. Each piece was numbered in the order I was going to need them in. Then I traced all of the piece onto the remaining 4"x20" glass. I didn't want to cut anything out at this time. I couldn't afford to waste the glass. Each piece of the arch consists of 4-8 piece of glass per section. Four for the right four for the left. Though in reality the glass is looks nearly the same on both sides.
It took almost an hour to trace all the pieces onto the glass. Cutting it was on the scary side. I left my self with no margin of error to cut them out. I had to cut a loose, freehand score 20" up the glass to free the strips. Everything broke out as planned. It took another hour or more to grind everything. I used my Twin Spin to flatten out the edges. Then I took each set of four squeezed them together tightly for grinding. The set's needed to be square to each other. Though looking back on it I should have matched the sets up left and right. But that probably would have been even more confusing.
I numbered all the pieces, 1-9 for the left, 13-22 for the right (I forget the exact numbers). Each piece was marked with an L or an R for the respecting sides. I used the Pilot Gold marker. After the foiling, most of the numbers survived. I had to sort out the piece by stacking them up on top of each other on the pattern. I ended up with about 25 unknown pieces. So I had to eye up those pieces and find the best match.
For the right side I was able to use a flexible guide to line up the pieces for soldering. The left side I had to do freehand because I couldn't figure out the best way to flip over the guide. Anywho... I started by tacking the arches. After each arch was tacked, I held it up against the dome, to check for proper fit. And they fit pretty well.
Originally, I was going to solder the arches on the table, patina, clean, and attach. I built a model first, from cardboard. The model became twisted after I made it. And although the model fit the curvature of the dome, it was twisted. Showing me that, if I did it that way with the glass the same problem could occur, and I didn't want to take that chance with the real thing.
So instead of building the arches on the bench, I built them on the dome itself. I drew on the dome where the arches were going to go. Marking the 1" wide strip on the dome with a marker. I attached the arches to the dome tacking in a few places. The arches were lined up from the top. I should have lined them at the header for the door. Each arch was about 1/8" taller then it should be. However it may not be an error. The dome it self may be higher, I'll attach the last pieces after I remove the dome from the mold.
The caps on the arches are slightly crooked, though it's not critically. I wanted the arches to follow over the dome. Some crookedness is ok, after all it is supposed to look like old stone.
Total Time: 6 Hours 45 Minutes
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Started on 11-28-98