Stained Glass in New Zealand. Leadlights, etc.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 5, 1 March 1909, Page 166

Stained Glass in New Zealand. Leadlights, etc.

Photos supplied by R. E. Tingey & Co., Wellington

Storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light. As readers of Progress are well aware, there are several establishments in the Dominion where the stained glass industry is in full swing. The work is done therein in a manner very creditable to the skill and enterprise of those concerned, and the industry has a good future before it. The other day Progress paid a visit to one of these homes of industry. The obliging experts showed us the glass of their fashions and the mould of their forms. "We were privileged to behold workers at work on the paper on which they draw the designs that are the beginning of their processes, and to gaze with pleasure on the finished product after the furnace has given up its artistically burnt. Here was something to be thankful for, something on which to dream of the future, something that seemed to promise value to the Kaolin of the North and the keramic clays of the South, something that actuated one to prophecy of great workshops and vast ateliers, in the fine manner of the

famous geologist of the pioneer Dominion days (yon Haast), who, coming upon a lump of bituminous coal in the Valley of the Grey, sat him down to contemplate and describe the coalpits of the future, with their poppet heads rising into the atmosphere, the cities under their smoky canopies dotting the valley, the harbours with their fleets, the struggles of capital and labour struggling for the mastery, and the farms ministering to the needs of the great new industry. But we must leave our Potsdams and Staffordshires of the future and get back to the Mother Earth of the present, that portion of the same known in the city of Wellington as Luke's Lane. This is the thoroughfare in which is situated the glass establishment of Messrs. R. and E. Tingey and Company, Limited, of which the presiding artistic head is Mr. A. R. Cattanach, whose work is well known in the Wellington Technical School, where he is a very popular and industrious Instructor. Under the guidance of this gentleman we saw the two types of process here in vogue. The simpler one is a species of plain Mosaic work, in which the design is cut out in panels of coloured glass, each

coloured panel set in a lead frame, the whole fastened in a frame and known as the leadlight of commerce. The other process is more complicated, requiring the help of a kiln, which, by the way, is one of the most remarkable contrivances in the world. For the first, the lead is melted in the ordinary way and cast roughly into a long bar with two grooves, running its entire length. This bar, known to the trade as a '"calm," is drawn out in a vice to four times its length, and the grooves are deeply milled to hold the glass panels. The "calm" is then bent by the hand of the artist to any shape required by the design and the glass fitted in to the grooves. The lead is soldered in place, and there you have your leadlight. In work requiring extra strength the "calm" is strengthened by lengths of light steel, flexible enough for the bending, and strong enough for anything. These strengthened "calms" are imported. The rest are made on the premises. In the studio there are many things to attract attention — easels of glass, frames of glasses and porcelains, designs for plaques, panels, mosaics, leadlights and memorial windows, all prominent on the walls, which they adorn in fine style. But the most prominent of all, that which catches the eye first and holds it, is the kiln. It is of

the type known as the Heaton ' ' Deflexem, ' ' and is a box of fireclay divided into two chambers, an upper and a lower, the latter with double side walls. Flame is supplied by four gas jets on each side with Bunsen burners, and the whole is mounted on long legs of steel, known as the "pedestal." This is fitted with racks, for the trays which carry the work in and out of the furnace. The lower of the two divisions of the kiln is the fire box, in which the burning is done, and it has a heat capacity up to 2000 degrees F. The names from the burners strike on the arched roof of this chamber, and are deflected so that the heat strikes down on the work resting on its tray beneath. The flames then pass upwards through the double walls of the upper chamber — known as the annealing chamber, and find their way out through the flue pipe in the roof of that chamber. The limit of heat of the annealing chamber is 400 to 600 degrees F. A pressure gauge at the side is a guide to the heat required for each particular process. The trays which take the work into the furnace are of asbestos and light steel, carrying a thickness of powdered plaster of Paris for the work to rest on without dis-

turbance to its level. Sliding into grooves at the sides of the chamber they stand one over the other in tiers during the burning. The work is ' ' warmed up " in the annealing chamber, where it is subjected to the lower degrees of heat, and once brought up to the temperature there prevailing, it is transferred to the firebox, where the flames play upon its surface for the necessary time. The burning over, the trays go back into the annealing chamber, where they are cooled off gradually. Where the painting to be burnt on is of many shades, more than one burning is necessary, as it has been found in practice that the paint, when too thick for the operation, bubbles about and the work is utterly spoilt. This disaster is known to the trade as "frying." Therefore, the colour is burnt in in relays, known as "Mats," one on top of the other. For a memorial stained glass window the process begins with the design drawn and coloured. Then a full sized cartoon is drawn, from which is traced the ' ' outline, ' ' which is used as a guide for cutting the incidental glass. This is then cut into pieces according to the position of the "calms." "When the pieces are cut out in glass they are put together on a glass easel and painted, according to the design. When the "mat" has been applied.

the whole is again taken to pieces, and the pieces are loaded up on trays and taken to the kiln to go through the process above described. After the burning the colours are warranted to remain fresh for all time, and of course are part of the glass to which they have been applied. The burning done, the panels are fitted to the "calms" and soldered. The "calms" are cemented and painted, and the work is done. Mosaics are also treated here, as are panels, friezes, plaques, and these may be done whole. Porcelains, tiles, and Majolica ware are also treated. The pigments are oxides — gold, copper, chromium, uranium, cobalt and the rest. The gold gives the rich purples and violets that are so expensive. The last thing we notice are the racks of glass. They hold glass of all kinds, plain and crinkled (the kind which gives such splendid effects of light), the glass known as English Antique, the opalescent varieties, the Old Norman, such as one sees in the old lance headed windows of the Norman architects, in fact, all the glasses known to the old world of artists in stained glass. They are the groundwork of a great industry.