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 This
beveled glass panel is mounted in a pocket door in a home in Aspen,
Colorado. The door closes off a small square foyer between the living
room and the main entrance.
The bevels used here are all stock items. The centerpiece is made up of
7 bevel sets designed to fit together in multiple ways, allowing for a
more unique design. The rest of the bevels, circles, squares, and
rectangles are all available in boxes of 30 pieces.
By
combining
beveled sets and beveled geometric shapes, I was able to
come up with a workable design that would fit into this door. Have you
worked with bevels? It's very hard to get symmetrical layouts for the
straight lines of bevels, particularly along the outside edge. Getting
a bunch of straight bevels to add up to the exact dimension in both the
horizontal and the vertical directions is almost impossible once the
lead or zinc is also between each beveled piece. And getting the
horizontal and the vertical to seem like they match is also
almost
impossible.
So I almost always try to talk clients out of bevels as the outermost
border; I actually always assumed it was impossible. But this
client insisted that was what she wanted, so I had to come up
with
a way to accomplish that. After trying the traditional look to
ascertain that it was near-impossible, I hit on the idea of arranging
these straight line bevels in a random order. The client
didn’t
take to this idea at first, but I convinced her it would be an
intriguing change from the traditional, and it was the only way I could
make this panel with an oustide beveled border.
Ordering the straight line bevels randomly allowed me to get within
1/2” of the distance I needed on all of the defined spaces.
Then,
if the row of bevels was too long, I ground off a tiny bit along two
dozen glass edges and if the row of bevels was too short, I added
a dozen or more thin (lead) shims between glass and
lead (or
glass and zinc). In this way I was able to make a tight beveled panel
with stock bevels around the outside edges.
Two clear, textured glasses were used along with the bevels, a
soft swirl (clear baroque) in the central background and a heavier
texture in
the very center of the design and in the border.
About two months after I installed this beveled door, the client wrote
me the following in an email
"Just
wanted to tell you again how very much I love our door. I
enjoy it every day
and it is the highlight of my home. Terry Thank
You!"
 The photo to the right was taken with the outer door open. > > > |
If you're
considering a custom stained glass that includes bevels, read more
about the use of bevels in my artworks.
Go directly to another Beveled
Glass Artwork.
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