Lochnagar from Westhall Workshops, Kincardine O'neil (Photo: Michael Zappert)

One of the drawbacks of working for yourself is working, more often than not, by yourself. Generally that's fine, but in the depths of winter, a bit of company can certainly warm up the workshop...

Over the last few weeks, Mike Z. has been working up at Westhall, making two large panels in a Frank Lloyd Wright style. It's been great - all the snow in front of the workshop has been cleared, and cake keeps appearing at lunchtime. His presence has even encouraged me to give the place a bit of a tidy.

On Thursday, as well as Mike, Hilary was up to work on a transom panel commission she is trying to get done. She's inherited Martin Farrelly's old workbench in her own little corner of the workshop, and the panel is progressing well.

The only downside to all the company is that now I have to remember to buy milk...

I installed two very simple door panels in a pitch pine door in a traditional farmhouse this morning. The client had requested additional protective glazing on the inside of the panels, which is relatively unusual for an internal panel. We also had to produce some new mouldings to replace some missing sections - thanks Niall!

More photo's here.

I arrived at the workshop to find Mike hard at work, digging his way into the front door. A combination of heavy snow fall, roofalanches and an enthusiastic snowplough driver had combined to bar access... The temperature inside the workshop was a tropical 1ºC ... Once we got going, however, it wasn't too bad.

The snow has set me back a bit on quite a few projects, but I am now back working on a large fused glass kitchen splashback commission. The piece consists of nine large tiles approximately 450mm long, with each panel made of two layers of fusible glass, coloured on top over a white base glass. The top of the splashback curves in a long gentle wave, to fit under a unit.

Today I cut 8 of the 9 tiles - I'll fire these and fit them, then cut the final tile to fill the gap to the wall, so I can be sure it will fit. The first firing is tomorrow - wish me luck. And, if you live in Kincardine O'neil, don't plan on using a kettle for a few hours tomorrow evening because my 22kW kiln is ging to suck every last drop of energy out of the grid...

This week, I have been helping Michael Zappert clear a stained glass studio in Aboyne. The studio belonged to Martin Farrelly, wonderful craftsman and stained glass artist who worked at, amongst other studios, Whitefriars, Goddard & Gibbs and Pluscarden Abbey. There are many, many stories to be told about Martin & his work, but I know Mike plans to write a piece at some stage so I'll not dwell on the clearance. I will say, however, that it was a privilege to meet the Martin & Val, and to benefit from their tremendous generosity.

Part of the reason I became involved with the clearance is that I had expressed an interest in milling lead calms by hand. Hand-milling lead used to be a common activity in stained glass studios, and I'd been musing that I'd like to try to revive the process. According to several writers, hand-milled lead is beautiful to work with - anyone who has worked with lead from Heaps and Stillemans knows that not all lead is created equal - and has a unique look very different to that of machine-milled lead. Another factor was that, like most studios, I have boxes of scrap lead and I liked idea of turning them into shiny, lead calm. Especially with lead prices as they are...

The remains of a lead mill had been sitting in a wooden box in the studio, unused, and Mike arranged that I could have the box and contents in order to attempt to "reverse engineer" a working lead mill. So I am now the proud custodian of a box of spindles, sprockets and "cheeks" (pictured above), manufactured (probably before 1939) by Crawford & Co., Tottenham, London.

The bulk of project will involve the recreation of the body of the mill itself, as that is completely missing, as well as the moulds for casting the blank cames (or calms). However, those tasks will probably be a lot easier than recreating the cheeks and spindles used to actually shape the lead. When I say easy, bear in mind that I have never seen one one of these mills in action, and my research so far has unearthed only some drawings of mills and the disassembled components...

Our Teaching & Workshops web pages have been long due an update, so I spent a little while adding some information and sorting out navigation this afternoon. The new pages have the following information: 

• Details of our weekend workshops
• An online application form for the workshops
• Links to useful web pages
• Downloadable material produced by Morning Glass Designs for the weekend workshops

Wendy, who created an amazing transom panel in just two days with aboslutely no previous experience, brought her daughter Ellen along on the second day. Together we cut her a range of mosaic pieces and she produced a funky little flower piece. At the end of the day, while we were clearing up and after she'd helped solder and cement her mum's panel, Ellen drew a group portait of the class (detail above). Not shown are my, allegedly, smelly feet...

Our next workshop will be held in late April - there are currently no spaces available on this class - and the summer workshop will be held at Mill Farm in late July (more details here).

The first of our weekend workshops this year starts at Mill Farm, Kemnay at 10AM this Saturday. There's a whole load of new glass, and the possibility of attempting some repair work on a damaged panel...

If you are coming, and need any information/directions please just give us a yell. If you'd like to attend any of our remaining classes (this one and the Spring workshop are both fully booked I'm afraid) check out this page for more information.

Winter continues to grip north east Scotland, and is still causing difficulties for many folk. In our case, the workshop still has no access and road conditions are making travelling awkward. We plan to re-open, in a limited manner, on Monday 11th January, although physically accessing the workshop may be a ways off yet...

In the short term, the restoration of the south lancet from Holyrood Chapel, Newburgh continues. The panel has now been re-leaded and cemented, and requires tie-wires and re-installation. While an improvement in the weather is required, we still hope to re-install the panel by the end of February at the latest.

Meanwhile, work continues on drawings for several customers, and on plans for our new workshop, construction of which should start in the Spring. If everything goes smoothly, by this time next year we would hope to have a weatherproof shell, ready to move operations from our Kincardine O'Neil base in Spring 2011. Once the workshop is complete, we will be focussing primarily on stained glass construction and restoration, with slightly less emphasis on kilnwork.

Other developments for 2010 include the expansion of our taught Stained Glass Workshops (with a beginner's restoration class and a midweek class being considered), linking up with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden to offer evening classes, and the construction of a traditional lead mill to produce hand-made lead for new windows.

With a bit of luck, normal service will resume again at Morning Glass Designs next week. I say with a bit of luck because, at present, the track to the workshop is impassable, we're pretty much snowed in at home anyway and the water supply to the workshop has been off since mid December...