How to make stained glass – cutline
If you want to learn how to make stained glass windows you must be able to get a good fit by making an accurate cutline.
What is it?
A tracing taken from your fullsize cartoon which you use as a guide to cut the individual pieces of glass that will make up your stained glass window.
What you need:
Fullsize cartoon, Pencil, 2mm pen, Tracing paper, Ruler, Set square
Making the cutline
You can’t cut glass for a stained glass panel without a cutline, it’s as simple as that. It’s like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without any idea of the finished picture – ill-advised!!!
Before you start, you have to think about the outside lead that will hold your stained glass panel together. Traditionally , 12mm wide lead is used for the edges of windows to allow for last-minute adjustments – you can fold or trim the outer flanges of the lead if the window is too big.
Imagine one edge of this 12mm lead to be the outside edge of your window – the fitting size. The cutline therefore has to be 7mm in from the outside edge, to accommodate the 5mm flange plus the 2mm heart of the 12mm lead.
So. Place a large sheet of tracing paper over your full-size cartoon, tape it down with masking tape, and draw a line 7mm in from the outside edge of your full size cartoon on to the tracing paper. This is the outside edge of your cutline.
Then draw along the centre of the lead lines on your design with a 2mm pen. This represents the 2mm heart of the lead. Remember you have to cut adjacent shapes to either side of this 2mm line, leaving a 2mm channel to accommodate the heart of the lead in the leading up process.
That’s all there is to it - once you’ve traced over all the lead lines with your 2mm pen you have your very own cutline. You are on the way to learning how to make a stained glass window, congratulations!
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