The Stained Glass Studio

Above is a stained glass piece which is now installed in a hatch over the temple room (aft port side hatch).  This photo had too much backlighting to show off the gold flute and jewelry.

Narada Muni and Krishna were both scanned ISKCON art: Krishna from the Krishna coloring book and Narada Muni from the Srimad Bhagavatam Second Canto, Part One, plate five.  They were then modified for stained glass and reprinted in the appropriate size for use as patterns.

The fore deck cabin top of the temple was chosen for the site of the four symbols of Lord Vishnu.  All of the stained glass work has been completed and encased within the hatch frames, laminated between two sheets of 1/4" tempered glass with a hermetic seal for total isolation and impact protection.

Due to the lamination of three actual panes of glass, ie. 1/4" tempered, stained glass work, and then topped off with yet another piece of tempered glass, the entire hatch should have an extremly high R factor. Along with the 1" closed cell insulation which was sprayed in (summer of 97) the ship should be quite easy to keep cool in the summer or warm in winter.

The Club and Disc both have to be seen personally to be appreciated. At night with lights on in the boat the club takes on a glowing ruby accent.  The gold no longer shines and with back light appears quite a formidable weapon.

All gold which does not photograph well is made of two panes of gold mirrored glass glued back to back and then incorporated in standard foil fashion.   The difficulty is that both pieces must be exact mirror images of each other or loose fit occurs.  The total thickness of the gold pieces is nearly twice that of the regular stained glass so this creates a need to play with different thicknesses of foil.   Soldering became a little tricky as well.

When I just finished building the stained glass studio in 1995 it looked like this.  Now its a mess with all kinds of other tools and bigger racks of glass.   On the other side of the room is a large light table built from an  old steel office desk. It sports 4, 4' fluorescent tubes atop a full desktop sized 1/2"   tempered glass pane. I can take a thick Krishna coloring book page, lay a dark piece of stained glass on top of it and trace it on the glass.  A fine light table indeed.  Anyone interested in stained glass should build one like this.  I paid as much for the glass top as I did for all the other parts combined.

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