Silver Stain – Proven Techniques

How you can trace, blend, shade & flood from a reliable batch that keeps for months (& why water or vinegar are no good for this)

Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets – Part 3

This information on this page is important if you’re new to silver stain or if you only mix it with water or vinegar.

This information is not for people who already use oils with silver stain.

Or if you already know how to trace, blend, shade and flood with silver stain.

All other glass painters, please continue – this is really useful to you.

Discover the techniques and secrets of successful silver staining

The cost of silver stain

When you “bulk buy” silver stain straight from the manufacturers, it will cost you between US $158 and US $324 a pound (16 ounces), depending on the type you choose.

Which is anywhere between to $9 and $20 an ounce.

Of course when you actually buy it one ounce at a time, maybe you’ll pay a third or more on top, so maybe $12 to $25 an ounce.

An ounce.

So that’s the cost issue.

Silver stain is expensive.

And if you only ever mix it with water or vinegar, you’re pretty much throwing that expensive powder to the four winds.

Not to mention the disappointment when it doesn’t work …

It’s up to you. It’s your life, your work. Do you enjoy the struggle? I mean, really?

The value of silver stain

Silver stain is gorgeous – when properly applied and properly fired.

Improperly applied and improperly fired, of course, it’s as ugly as sin.

What’s more, your piece is pretty much ruined. All that work is wasted. (Unless you go to the bother of using hydrofluoric acid to remove the ruined silver stain …)

But let’s focus now on the good side of stain. Unlike glass paint, it’s transparent. You can use stain to shade white glass into yellow, orange glass into red, blue glass into green. It’s a joy!

So when I said a moment ago it was expensive, let’s just be clear: nothing is expensive if it’s worth it, and silver stain – being so beautiful – is definitely worth it.

It’s just that it’s so difficult to use.

One day it works, the next day it doesn’t. What’s going on here?

See, it’s the failure-rate which really makes silver stain “expensive”.

Reduce the failure-rate and improve your techniques, and silver stain is worth it without any shadow of a doubt.

Water and vinegar

Most people mix stain with water or vinegar.

Their failure-rate is fairly high, I hazard to guess. Nasty ugly metalling on the one hand or infuriatingly weak colour on the other. Bah!

Seen from the outside - this kind of failure is unacceptable and unnecessary - you'll discover why it happens and how to avoid it

Yet what’s actually worse is that, even when it works with water or vinegar, there’s still a massive failure to reach stain’s full potential. Its sheer unrivalled beauty.

Can you use water or vinegar to shade and blend? No, you can’t. That’s my point.

Problems with water and vinegar

These are the main problems I remember from my days with water and vinegar (oh, what days of endless frustration they were):

• It’s impossible to shade from light to dark
• It’s really hard to blend
• It’s impossible to mix and store a batch that works reliably for months and maybe years
• It’s difficult to apply smoothly to a specific area; instead you end up applying too much, then picking it out and damaging your lungs with all the dust, not to mention all the stain that’s wasted …
• It’s unreliable because even if you do a test, you can’t use the same batch to do your real piece

What a mess. What a waste of time and money. What a failure to achieve beauty.

But you can change all this.

Here’s the answer.

Silver stain – proven techniques

Information on the correct use of silver stain is scarcer than gold dust. In most books, you’ll be lucky to find more than a paragraph.

Even then, you’ll mostly be instructed in the use of water or vinegar, which as I’ve shown is pretty much pointless.

So David and I decided to remedy this lamentable situation.

I mean, glass painters have been staining glass for the best part of 800 years.

And the introduction of silver stain brought about a huge increase in its potential – for the simple reason you could now include two colours within a single piece of glass.

Freedom!

Seems a shame this knowledge should be lost. And it will be lost if folks continue their unsatisfactory ways with water and vinegar …

So David and I composed a detailed 18-page guide plus filmed a load of video demonstrations. And all is information is a whole lot better than the sentence or two most other books contain.

The title says it all:

Silver Stain – How You Can Trace, Blend, Shade & Flood from a Reliable Batch that Lasts for Months (and why water or vinegar are no good for this)

Silver Stain - Proven Techniques

Here’s what you will learn:

• How to mix a reliable batch of stain that keeps for months and months
• How to find the best firing schedule for your own kiln
• How to trace with stain
• How to flood with stain
• How to avoid picking out and wasting dried stain ever again
• How to shade stain from dark to light
• How to blend two different kinds of stain together
• How to create textures in stain
• How to give added emphasis and body to your stain shading
• What you must do to preserve the smoothness of your stain shading
• The brushes to use, what to use to store your stain, what to use for a palette

This immediate and downloadable guide also contains a step-by-step project plus full documentation.

Just $9.97
Immediate Download

Silver stain – it’s your decision

It’s a free world. People are free to muddle around with the “recommended” techniques of water and vinegar and waste a lot of money and cause themselves a lot of worry …

Or you can get solve the mysteries of silver stain and get this guide for $9.97 which is a bargain when you consider the time and money this information will save you.

Check out this short video and then decide for yourself.

Remember, when you buy stain, you’re mostly spending more than US $20 an ounce.

And now for the first time ever you will get real knowledge about how to use stain wisely and beautifully:

My offer to you

Technique-packed PDF guide to traditional water-based kiln-fired stained glass painting

US $9.97

“Yes I want to download this guide right now!
I understand I always have
a 60-day, no-risk, money-back guarantee”

Best,

Also comes with online videos

P.S. I’ve also included 7 online video demonstrations so you see exactly what to do. These videos will save you so much time and money:

• How to mix a reliable batch of stain that lasts for many months – it’s all in video #1 (12 minutes 32 seconds)
• The painting and staining of the Hereford Window – here in video #2 you see real-life staining in action, and also how to use a ground of glass paint to add depth and body to your silver stain (19 minutes 45 seconds)
• A real-life demonstration to some students – nothing “staged” or pre-prepared about this, it’s rough and quick and that’s the whole point. All in video #3 (6 minutes 15 seconds)
• How to prepare your brushes for staining. If you don’t do this, your brushes won’t load properly. Watch video #4 (2 minutes 21 seconds)
• How to dilute your paste. Again a rough and quick video to show you how to get down to work with your batch of paste and use it to create the consistency of stain you want. In video #5 (1 minute 51 seconds)
• How to make even softer shadows with an oil-based undercoat, and what you must do to be sure this works. A wonderful and versatile technique that allows you to blend stain over really large areas and to shade as subtly as you can wish. Watch video #6 (3 minutes 33 seconds)
• Three more demonstrations where you see how quick and easy it is to use oil-based stain to add golden highlights to your glass – all in video #7 (9 minutes 22 seconds)

You will get 55 minutes of close-up, practical and successful techniques to watch and copy.

And maybe the most important thing of all:

You see with your own eyes how to hold and use a round-headed blender.

This just isn’t explained elsewhere, don’t ask me why – maybe because the experts just forget to tell you what’s really important.

So you will see what you must do to blend and shade your silver stain.

This is not something you can get from a book on its own – that’s why, if you have a high-speed internet connection, you must watch the videos. Click here for immediate access.