In this week’s Craft Corner, we’re featuring a project we completed during a workshop at The Glass Cottage in Arlington.
To make glass wind chimes exactly like our sample, you’ll need to either take a workshop or purchase the pieces from The Glass Cottage, but you can use the basic techniques we’ll describe in the column to make original chimes on your own.
The first step in making the chimes is to select the glass pieces, beads and other embellishments you want to include in your creation.
For our sample, we chose a cobalt blue fuse-drape top, some clear and cobalt blue glass strips, several small bottle embellishments and an assortment of clear and blue beads.
Lay all of the pieces out before you do any drilling or other assembly to make sure you know where you’re headed pattern-wise, which pieces need to be drilled and that the pieces will be placed so they provide a pleasant chiming sound.
Placement is important, because if you have strips hitting strips or bottles hitting bottles, you’ll end up with a clunking sound instead of a nice chime.
When you’ve planned your design, made sure you have all the necessary pieces and know where you need to drill holes, you’re ready to drill.
The best tool to use for this project is a small, low-speed, Dremel drill with a diamond bit.
Mark the glass pieces to be drilled with an ink dot at the site of each hole.
To drill holes in glass, you need to have a constant supply of water at the site of the hole to be drilled to avoid shattering the glass with friction heat from the drill.
Flat pieces, such as the squares, strips and bottles in our sample, can be drilled under water by placing the pieces in a small glass or metal pan. (But if you use metal, take care not to drill through it when the drill has gone through the glass piece.)
Begin drilling with your drill bit at an angle on the glass to get going, slowly straightening it to a vertical position, rotating your hand gently and applying minimal pressure (let the tool do the work rather than using brute force) to make the hole.
To drill holes in glass pieces such as the fuse-drape top – those that will not lie flat in a pan of water – take a strip of modeling clay and roll it into a tube, then place it in a circle around the site of the hole to be drilled to form a watertight well.
Fill the little well with water and drill as directed above, making sure to keep the well full of water while drilling.
When your holes are drilled, you’re ready to begin stringing the chimes together.
A general knowledge of beading techniques is a good thing to have for this project. Even with good written instructions, hands-on experience is the best teacher.
Start with the center string first, cutting a length of beading wire or string long enough to string your hanging beads (on top of the top piece) and the beads on the bottom side of the top down to the first strip or embellishment of the center string.
Begin by making a loop with the wire-string – large enough to use as a hanger – and secure with a crimping bead (using either small, needle-nosed pliers or a crimping tool), then proceed with stringing the rest of the beads to be used in your hanging string.
For our sample, we placed a small bottle in the middle of our hanging beads, so we used two lengths of wire-string instead of one.
Whenever you add a drilled piece, you’ll be beginning and finishing off a length of wire-string by securing with a crimping bead.
End your center string with a large bead, glass piece or other embellishment (we ended ours with a small blue bottle).
To finish the chimes, string the four outside bead strings, making sure that you keep them equal in length and that the placement of the pieces is correct for providing a good chiming sound.
If you are not familiar with general beading techniques or feel uncertain about drilling holes in glass – or if you just want to make the chimes exactly as shown in a pleasant learning environment – we strongly recommend that you take one of The Glass Cottage’s workshops, which are offered periodically, usually from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a Saturday. The cost is $60, which includes materials and instruction.
If you feel confident enough to attempt the chimes on your own, but still want a finished product like our sample, Anita Black, owner of The Glass Cottage, hopes to have kits or pieces available for sale for the holidays.
Call 360-657-4527 for the workshop schedule, kit availability and directions to the shop.
Those with experience in the techniques used for this project, or those who want to design their own chimes using the skills described, can simply let their imaginations go and get creative.
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