Stained Glass Painting – Silver Stain

Jeff Hitch e-mailed us from Mission Viejo in California with a question about silver stain:

Can you please give me some tips on how to paint with silver stains?

I have been using vinegar and brushes with no metal (since I understand there’s an active ingredient in the stain which corrodes the metal).

They paint OK but they just don’t flow as well as other types of paints.

Also, I can’t get them to gradate very well. Can you help?

Yes!

Stain is always problematic.

Slight differences in temperature can produce dramatically different results.

Differences in glass tend to produce different results.

And, when glass has previously been fired, this can also produce different results.

Therefore it’s always important to run tests.

This is especially so because one tends to paint stain last of all, when everything else has been done to perfection.

So, even with what we’ll tell you now, you always need to advance with caution.

The Majority View

Most people in this country mix stain with water.

I’ve asked around, and most people in the US seem to mix stain with either water or vinegar.

Here’s a run-down of the resultant problems:

Both media make it difficult to judge the density of the colour

Both media are difficult to apply to all and only the desired area

Neither media shades at all well

Both media, when dry, are messy and noxious to clean up

So a fine set of problems!

It’s daft to tolerate problems like this, so Jeff is absolutely right to ask questions.

A Different Approach

We use oil, either oil or tar, or lavender, or sandalwood.

Oil of tar is wonderful but carcinogenic, so we absolutely and unequivocally can’t recommend anyone gets into using it.

Lavender and/or sandalwood work fine.

As everyone knows, sandalwood is very thick, so we suggest starting with lavender.

Get a good essential oil.
Follow similar directions to how we mix oil-based paint as explained in part 6 of our e-book.
You just need a one or two palette knife’s worth of stain.
Add the oil a little at a time.
Keep adding oil until you have a really thick paste.
Decant this into a tiny sealable jam jar, and leave it to settle.
The next day, put some of this paste on your palette, add some neat oil and mix with a palette knife until you have a thickly floodable mixture.
Then flood this into the areas that you want to stain.

You obtain lighter colours by making a thinner dilution on your palette and by spreading it more thinly.

Being oil, this is far easier to achieve than with water or vinegar.

It’s also possible to blend the stain.

Problems solved – but you will always need to experiment!

No messy clean up – the only disadvantage is that it doesn’t dry as such, so you must handle the glass carefully until it’s fired.

We’ve found oil far more predictable and controllable than water.

It also keeps for ever in the jam jar, so it’s far more economical to use than with water. No waste.

Firing: we usually go to 220 Fahrenheit / 100 c. over 2 hours, rest there for 10 minutes, then go to 1040 F. / 560 c. over 2 hours, then let the kiln cool at its normal rate. But we aware that every case is different.

Note this:

There will be full details of this and other related stained glass painting techniques in our forthcoming hard-back book, The Glass Painter’s Method.

You’ll just need to wait until 2010 for the complete story.

In the meantime, please ask questions as you wish.

Enjoy the liberation from water and vinegar.