How to Foil Stained Glass

The application of foil to glass is what allows the individual pieces to be soldered together.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copper foil
• Burnisher
• Foiler (optional)

1. Wash individual cut pieces of stained glass in a basin filled with water and 2 tablespoons of ammonia mixed in.

2. Thoroughly dry the glass. Glass pieces must be absolutely dry to proceed properly.

3. 
   Foiling Glass

   Wrap edges of each piece of glass with copper foil. Be sure to center the foil on the edge of the glass. Normal foil width is 7/32" wide.

4. 
   Crimping Foil

   Crimp or press the foil around the glass edges. Be sure that all foil is completely anchored by double checking that all foil has had pressure placed on it in order to adhere.

5. 
   Burnish Foil

   Using a burnisher or popsicle stick, press the foil down along the edges and top of the glass.

6. If you found this article helpful in any way, please rate it as such. The 5th star on the right above would be nice. Feel free to comment as well.

Tips & Warnings

• When using transparent glass or bevels, choose a copper foil backing that will match your solder lines. If you plan to leave your solder lines silver, choose silver-backed foil. If you are using copper patina, choose copper-backed foil. If black patina is your choice, then use black-backed foil.
• If glass is not clean and dry, foil will not adhere properly.
• If foil splits when doing inside curves, start and end foiling at the deepest part of the curve.

Resources

• www.creativity-in-glass.com/foilingstainedglass.html
• www.easyhomeimprovementprojects.com

[FrazzledNanny]

on 1/28/2009 This looks great. Thanks for the pictures. 5* RRC

[georgelarson]

on 12/19/2008 This is a good article about foiling. I have found that the new foiling machines take a lot of the work out of trying to center the foil. Thanks for sharing.