Copper Foil Cuts Fingers

by Marcia H. McCaskey
(Hemphill, Texas )

I am fairly new at stained glass and have been using Venture 1 mil copper foil because it was given to me. I decided to purchase Venture 7/32 black back that was 1.25 mil because I wanted to use black patina. I hand foil and find that the my fingers are cut to pieces by the 1.25 mil. I never cut my fingers on the 1 mil. Do all brands do this or just Venture? Does anyone know where I can purchase some black back that is 1 mil?? Does anyone have a suggestion for foiling and still having fingers left. I tried the table foiler and the hand foiler and hated them both! I haven't tried Inland foiler or glastar foiler yet. Would one of them work better than the table foiler?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Marcia

Answer
Hi Marcia,

Try Edco foil. It is soft, flexible and sticks extremely well. I hand foil and use Edco 1.25 for everything. It comes in black back, silver and copper. Just Google Edco Copper Foil to find a distributor. There are a lot of places that sell it. Glasscrafters.com is where I get mine.

Like you, I have found Venture foil to have sharp edges as well as being very stiff. I'm not fond of it at all, but there are a lot of loyal Venture users around.

Perhaps someone reading this can recommend a foiler. I've tried a few and always went back to foiling by hand.

Go here for my tutorial for the copper foil technique in case you haven't seen it. You might find some information that will help you.