Diary of a Demented Store Owner

Sunday 29 June 2014

Mikey Dispels Another Nasty Rumour



"On the first day of my first stained glass course, my instructor attempted to perpetuate the common myth that glass in windows flows over time, that's why glass is thicker at the bottom in church windows."
A few years ago, Edgar Dutra Zanotto published an article in the American Journal of Physics (#66, May 1998) in which he calculates the time it takes for glass to flow. He estimates it will take 100000000000000000000000000000000 (10 to the power of 32) years for the glass to show any noticeable change at normal temperatures.
Oh, by the way, the age of the universe is 10 to the power of 10.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Uroboros Crate label Says It All



Unlike the non-existence of a full-line Canadian glass distributor- Mikey Really Exist as evident by the label above...

Blood Donor Clinic


I know that if you are a regular reader of this blog of Mikey's that this is not the sort of posting you might expect. But levity and brevity take a break today. Today we post something different- a plea for all of you to become involved in a worthy cause- a blood donor clinic. 

We post this here for three reasons- firstly, believe it or not, the two principle owners of Fantasy In Glass are of proud Cossack blood (love the pants and all that grunting) (Taras Bulba has nothing on Mikey... Vanna Opal), the cause is worthy and finally, the location is but a short walk's distance from our store. If you have the time and the inclination please consider this your good deed for the day. 

To quote a good friend Dr. Hareychuk's FB posting-
Ukraine-Canada Coalition is organizing this great event and wishes to thank Ms. Anna Kisil and King's Garden for the use of their facility on July 1st.
The donation of blood is in memory of Nebesna Sotnya and everyone who died fighting for the democratization of Ukraine.

We spill enough blood doing this craft, let's spill some for a worthy cause!
At:
Kings Garden Banquet Hall
15 Canmotor Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M8Z 4E4
July 1st from 10am to 6pm



Saturday 14 June 2014

A Fun and Easy Fusing Project

And how do we know it's so easy? Because Gary Brown can do it.
This is a variation of the popular drink coaster project many early fusers find themselves trying. All you need is a 12" clear sale square as a cap (and to give the coaster some body to help overcome volume control issues- ask Mikey), and then a base colour. Mikey used his favourite- Blue Aventurine.



We then cut each sale square into 4" squares (cool- no waste) stacked the clear on top of the blue, loaded them into the kiln and fired them to 1480F.



Next, we pulled out our trusty Beattie's Ultimate Strip Guide sort of ably modelled here by Mac (model provided for a small promotional fee)-



We then cut one 1.75" strip in four different colours, turned the strips sideways and made a bunch of squares, which were then split diagonally (just like how Mikey's mom used to cut his Klik  sandwiches)(couldn't afford Spam)-



Moving along, we then managed once again to pry that Beattie Strip Guide out of the vice like grip of Mackenzie's and using the 5/8" notch, split the squares like so (green sample used for dramatic effect)-


With no help whatsoever from Mackenzie, we figured out how to orient all the split triangles and with Fuser's Glue lined them up,  and loaded them into the kiln-


Even though the base glass is now 1/4" thick, there still is a small volume control effect so we chose to do a low fire- 1440F with a short 2 minute hold. This also made the puzzle more 3D like and therefore more attractive in Mackenzie's opinion-




Glass Patterns Quarterly

Cleaning out an old drawer, Mikey tripped across a whole bunch of GPQ magazines- going back over 20 years. Now all on sale at the store!


Friday 13 June 2014

Who Knew?!


Formed in 1966, the band named Stained Glass began life as a Beatles cover band performing live in and around their native San Jose until an A&Rman from RCA signed them to the label later that year.

Four singles for RCA duly followed, but success stubbornly refused to do likewise, although We Got A Long Way To Go (RCA 47-9166) , a driving rock song far removed from their more usual Mersey beat style, did provide the band with a small degree of fame when the single became a big hit in Southern California in 1967.

Disillusioned with life at RCA, the band decamped to Capitol in early1968, where they were to record three singles and two highly acclaimed albums which, despite attracting the critic’s plaudits, failed to make an impact causing the group to disband in November1969 with vocalist/bass player Jim McPherson going on to join Copperhead.

While the band’s first album, Crazy Horse Roads (Capitol ST154) was an eccentric amalgam of commercial tunes, fuzz guitar and psych touches, their second effort, Aurora (Capitol ST242), with its looser,more jammy feel, is the one that the general consensus rates as the better of the two.

Thursday 12 June 2014

Sales page Update


Our Monthly Sales page is now The Unpredictable and Sporadically Always Changing Sales Page and already Mikey has changed and added stuff- see here (you might need to do a page refresh)...

Thursday 5 June 2014

Sale Page Update

Our Monthly Sales page is now The Unpredictable and Sporadically Always Changing Sales Page and already Mikey has changed and added stuff- see here (you might need to do a page refresh)...