Friday, November 24, 2017

More window than I wanted

I did a sabbatical project/experiment with colored glass pebbles, but to get all the colors that I wanted, I ended up buying a lot more pebbles than I needed.

I had the idea of finding an old window, and gluing the extra pebbles to the glass.  Some time later, I did find a free-by-the-side-of-the-road window, but it was rather large and heavy...five feet long and double-paned.  I hauled it home anyway, and thought about it for a while.

Then I looked at it again, and realized that the glass was framed with wood, covered with metal on the outside face, and that I could drill through the wood at one end, and drop pebbles down between the panes.

So I drilled a hole, carefully aiming between the panes, and enlarged and shaped it with a keyhole saw and small files.  The hole was close to the corner of the interior cavity, which was helpful for shaking out the sawdust that fell down inside the window.

Then some children helped me put the pebbles in.  I put the window on enough of a slant for the pebbles to slide down to the bottom, but not anywhere near vertical...I didn't want a falling pebble to break the window glass.

I also didn't fill up the entire space between the panes...between one-quarter and one-third full was as much weight as I felt comfortable putting between the panes.

Then there was the question of where to display it when it was done...it was far too heavy to hang easily, and I didn't want it falling down anywhere.  (In the previous year, I had already cleaned up broken glass from a large picture frame and a clock.) I finally leaned it against the bedroom wall, horizontally, until I could find a better home for it.

In the end, I donated it to a charity rummage sale, and someone bought it--whether only for the pebbles or for the piece as a whole, I can't say.

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