Where would I reinforce?

by Cassandra
(Bundaberg, QLD Australia)

Hello Sue, I'm beginning a new panel and would appreciate your advice please.
I did a leadlighting course earlier this year and since then have been doing leadlight panels for six cabinets in my home.
I'm almost finished and ready for my next project. A Jillian Sawyer piece, modified to suit my panel size.

Question time :)
Reinforcement....the finished glass size will be approx 2ft10"W x 1ft5"H. I'd like to use copper restip. Where in the picture would I reinforce?

In the leadlight course, I did lead and copperfoil. I enjoy lead more but was thinking of doing the birds in copperfoil as some of those pieces are much smaller, and the remainder in lead. What would you advise?

The panel will be exterior and face the coolest side of the house. As you will be aware, here in Australia we replace the glass for the leadlight glass so will be exposed to the elements including rain.
Thank You :)

Answer

Hi Cassandra,

I deleted your picture and replaced it with one showing places to reinforce. I also added another gum leaf (there is an arrow showing where it is). I added it to give a better avenue for the re-strip going through there. I used two colors to show the reinforcement, as one color made it impossible to see the path each piece of restrip took.

It's up to you whether you want to do both lead and foil, or just lead. With the very small/narrow faced lead came available in Australia, there is no reason why you couldn't do the entire window in lead, but that all depends on your experience and how confident you'd be doing it. We used 3.1mm lead for many of our birds and flowers. One word of caution, be sure the channel of you narrow lead is wide enough to accept the re-strip.

When the window is done, we'd love to see it on the photo albumn page of this web site.