Learn
Two things to learn here, and they are not the same thing
Learning the software and learning the craft are different jobs, and most people arrive needing one of them rather than both. So they are kept apart: if you have cut glass for twenty years, the first half is all you want. If you have never scored a sheet, the second half is where to start.
Using Nessie
How the program works
The tools, the three views, how glass follows your edits, and what the cut list is counting. Short, and specific to Nessie.
4 lessons
Nessie Stained Glass School
How to make stained glass
Grinding to the line, soldering a bead that stays put, framing, and what to do when a panel has drifted. The craft itself, true whatever you design it in.
8 written, 4 still to film
Using Nessie
Driving the program, and why it behaves as it does
Nessie works differently from a drawing tool in a few specific ways. These explain them, so the differences stop being surprises.
4 lessons shown
Drawing a panel that behaves like lead
Why there is no split tool, and why that turns out to be the point.
9 min · Written
Design, Glass and Pattern: the three views
One drawing, three questions, and why the canvas answers one at a time.
7 min · Written
Glass that follows your edits
Why a red piece cut in two gives you two red pieces.
8 min · Written
The cut list and the Check panel
What the numbers mean, and what the warnings are actually warning you about.
10 min · Written
Nessie Stained Glass School
Learning the craft itself, from the first score onwards
None of this is about software. It is what to do with a sheet of glass, a cutter and an iron, and the things that go wrong for everyone the first time.
Start with what goes wrong, and work outwards
Written, not filmed, so you can read one at the bench with glass dust on your hands. Each takes a single problem end to end: reading a pattern before you cut, setting a bench up so it does not fight you, choosing glass for the light it will actually hang in, and what to do when a panel has already drifted out of true.
- 124 min12 lessonsBeginner
Nessie Stained Glass School
Short lessons on the things that go wrong
Each one covers a single problem, start to finish. No forty-minute intros.
12 lessons shown
Reading a pattern before you cut
Cut lines, allowances, and why the glass is smaller than the drawing.
8 min · Written
Scoring a clean line
Pressure, speed and the sound you are listening for.
Video · not made yet
Setting up a bench that doesn't fight you
Height, light, waste, and the housekeeping that actually matters.
10 min · Written
Choosing glass for light
Reading opacity and texture before you commit a sheet.
9 min · Written
Breaking inside curves
Why the glass keeps running past your line, and how to stop it.
Video · not made yet
Designing around your offcuts
Laying out a pattern to use what you already have.
12 min · Written
Grinding to the line, not past it
Why every piece ends up a hair small, and what that does to a panel.
10 min · Written
Foiling for an even solder line
Centring, burnishing, and the width to use where.
Video · not made yet
Fitting a panel that has drifted
Finding the row that went wrong instead of shaving everything.
14 min · Written
Soldering a bead that stays put
Heat, flux, speed, and what a lumpy line is telling you.
15 min · Written
Lead came for larger panels
When came beats foil, and how to stretch it properly.
Course · not made yet
Framing, hanging and finishing
Edging, reinforcement, patina, and hanging it so it stays hung.
12 min · Written
Make something Legendary
Questions people actually ask
If yours is not here, the forum will answer it faster than we can.
- Not to design. Nessie runs in the browser and the pattern tools are free to use. You need tools once you are ready to cut: a cutter, breaker-grozers, a grinder or a carborundum stone, and then foil and a soldering iron or lead came and a fid. Our own shop is not open yet, so buy them wherever you like for now.
- There are real risks and they are all manageable: glass cuts, lead is toxic if you eat it or breathe its dust, and flux fumes want a window open. Wash your hands before you eat, keep food out of the workshop, and solder somewhere with moving air. We have not written the safety lesson yet, so please do not take this paragraph as one. The Stained Glass Association of America and your lead supplier both publish proper guidance.
- Most people finish a suncatcher in an afternoon. A framed panel is a few weekends. A window is a project, and that is the honest answer.
- Patterns you draw yourself are yours outright, and we claim nothing in them. The library patterns are ours, and you are welcome to cut and sell panels made from them. We have not written the formal license yet, so if you are planning a production run, ask us first and we will put it in writing.
Learn it, then build it.
Every lesson links straight into the designer, so you can try the technique on a real pattern while it is still fresh.