2 Fails for Every Success

My efforts to force a patina on the holy water font by using ammonia and salt met with abject failure. Likely because the bowl and crucifix are not actually copper and brass, the technique did absolutely nothing to either item.

So I reverted to Plan B: heating the metal to create a patina-like surface. However, this also has the same flaw in that because they're not actually those metals, they don't react and "tarnish" the same way real copper or brass would. As a result that was a failure too!

The end result was that I turn to the old standby of just using paints and washes to achieve the desired patina. I think washes of greens, blues, and black created an effect that this is an aged holy water font.

After completing that task, which took a surprisingly long time to achieve, I turned my attention to the stained glass window. I completed outlining the design in the grouping of three circles then began painting the images in the lower windows.



Okay! This was actually a lot of fun to do. Admittedly it was a bit tedious, but painstakingly plodding along helped move the project much closer to completion. I think when the window is painted and installed, and the lighting is put in behind it, it will look like a real stained glass gothic arch window. Check out this artist's stained glass window, and you'll see the effect I'm talking about with the window lit from behind with rope lights:

So far I'm very happy with the project's progress,  but of course, there's more to do on this window as well as on the second one. So this project is not yet one for the books.

However, I plan to begin working on the candle offering luminary table, doing both projects simultaneously (for my sanity as well as that of those tagging along and following my progress int hat they don't have to just watch me paint small areas on the stained glass window).

I think I have a workable solution to what could have turned into a major project, but unnecessarily so.

Frozen Pipes and Stained Glass Windows

I had wanted to start working on the candle offering table yesterday, but my plans were derailed by a case of frozen water pipes in the kitchen. When the plumbing was installed several years ago, the hot and cold supply lines were placed on an exterior wall and left uninsulated. Since man-made global warming has failed to materialize like we were promised, we continue to have this effect known as frigid temperatures in the winter, which causes the pipes to freeze.

I'm usually attuned to the weather and when I know we're in for one of these arctic blasts I leave the faucets on a trickle. It's a suboptimal solution but it's allowed me to punt having to deal with it for a good long while. My pipes tricked me this time, however, by not freezing overnight as they usually do, but rather at around 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., which has never happened -- and it didn't seem all that cold anyway!

When it wouldn't thaw, though, it forced me to take action, so I ended up getting a pair of heating cables that you tape to the pipes and when it senses the temperature is around freezing they supposedly turn on.

After several hours of waiting, the cables never got warm. Most likely it's because the part that gets frozen is actually somewhere between the floor joists and the kitchen, a section that's only a foot or so in size, but completely inaccessible. I've even tried getting at them from outside the house, removing the siding and cutting a hole in the sheathing, but to no avail. The concrete foundation wall is a good 3-feet high and prevents accessing them.

So what I did, since the cables didn't seem to be working, and since I had exposed the pipes to where I could reach them a little, I just took out my heat gun and blasted them. In about 20 seconds the ice dam thawed sufficiently to allow the water pressure to push it through and we had running water again.

I gotta admit, demo-ing the storage room ceiling and attempting to install the cable consumed far more of my time and energy than I planned, not to mention wreaking havoc on my knees, so I didn't have much time left in the day to do any of the projects I had wanted:

* Make the offering candle luminary
* Do the stained glass window
* Age the holy water font

I've got a fun way to tackle the luminary (fun for me, anyway...insert Tim Allen grunts here), which I'll share in the future when I actually start on the project, and my original idea for the stained glass wasn't really going to work.

I'd thought of simply using painted sheets of transparencies to cover the opening, but it really wasn't going to look good because the openings were larger than the sheets and I'd have to use 2 sheets for each window, meaning there would be a line in the middle. So instead I'll use a sheet of plastic, like Plexiglas and Lexan, just not as expensive and then paint it up.

As for aging the font, I want to see if there's a quick way to achieve an aged copper patina, otherwise I'll just have to use paint, because as many of you noted, it's too new and shiny.

But all those projects had to take a backseat to the frozen pipes today. I still need to come up with a long term solution for them because I'm not sure the heating cables will get cold enough to work, but at least there's access to them now so that if they do freeze again, I'll be able to quickly hit them with a heat gun.

Gothic Horror

Last week marked the start of my building two gothic arched windows for my planned walk-thru haunt this year. More prop than functional, the windows will be featured in the church room of the haunt just to add an additional layer of depth to the scene. I'm hoping to make each area of the haunt more than just black walls as I'd like the experience to be an immersive one.

Tall order for a first-year haunt in a driveway, but some of my favorite home haunters like Brad Godspeed and Chris Ainsworth have achieved some levels of detail that's unequaled in most haunts. It's going to be a relatively small haunt -- I've only got 8 feet of width to work with, though it's going to run some 30 feet or so long -- so I think there needs to be lots of eye candy to hold the attention of those going through.

Part of that is the gothic windows I'm building. Based on a design by Jason Becker from Graves of the Groves, the windows are built out of an MDF wood frame overlaid with rigid foam insulation for the detail.

Making the windows was a much more involved process than I imagined. Simply watching a video, even one that's not time-lapsed, fails to give the full scope of effort that's needed. Yet if you do watch Jason's video for his mini-gothic window, which is time-lapsed, you can see he goes through several "costume changes" during the build. Even on a small scale these windows are a challenge.

As a half-assed woodworker, I'm all too familiar with people not understanding the design and build process. I build toy boxes as baby shower gifts and though they are essentially little more than 4 sides, a bottom, and a top there's a lot of effort that goes into just making each component before you can even begin to put them together: measuring, cutting, routing, and sanding before you even get to the gluing, clamping, drying, sanding again, and finishing.

It's the same with these windows, and I should know better. I saw the videos and though, oh cool! I'll cut out some shapes, slap some foam on, and paint. I can call it a day by 5 p.m.! Well here we are 5 days later and I'm only just getting close to finishing the build now.

I should be winding down the build today with the latest layers of foam added to it, leaving just the painting of it to do. I'm still undecided whether it will have a stone-carved look to it, which is the way I'm leaning, or a wood look.

If you have a preference on whether the windows should be wood or stone, let me know in the comments section below.