I like these glass snowflakes. They make pretty Christmas tree ornaments or hanging window decorations. The shallow winter sunbeams radiating through the stained glass panels is kind of mesmerising.
The snowflake is made of – supposedly – uniform square cut of 6 glass pieces. They are in 3 different shades of blue.
The glass has a subtle pattern reminiscent of window frost that is in theme with the project. (The product is called “Artique Oceanside” glass.) The edge is covered by self-adhering copper foil and soldered together using a 50/50 Zn-Pb solder. For fixture, I soldered a piece of zinc wire on top.
I can be rather obsessed about proper gift packaging. This time I came up with an additional custom gift box that would support the shape of the glass snowflake. It was challenging because the error margins added up noticeably thanks to the somewhat more complicated shape plus me having rather weak fine motor skills & pretty basic tools. I managed to keep my frustration in check and the end result is acceptable. It’s the care, effort and intention that matters anyway.
On this photo the snowflake rests on one of the “proof of concept” pieces. This is a wooden frame with felt lining similar to the ones glued into the box. These top and bottom pieces cushion the glass snowflake in between. Both pieces have a plug and a pocket and the two slide into each other.
I wanted to incorporate a magnet into the top and bottom parts to snap & hold them together. One is located in one of the plugs and another in the corresponding pocket. However given the space needed by the actual thingy the box was made to hold plus the thickness of the materials and tolerances; add on top that magnetic field strength declines with the distance squared — the result is that the magnets contribute little.
The magnets are not strong enough to hold the box together when held only by its top given the weight of the bottom half plus the considerable weight of the tainted glass snowflake itself. Just keep it on a shelf and it will be perfectly fine. The shape, the large contact surface and friction is more than enough to make it unlikely to knock the box open while dusting.
So the magnetic feature is a bit of a dud due to flawed design. No worries, the box has more bells & whistles. Chimes to be more exact. I incorporated one of those hand-wound skeleton music boxes into the top of the box. The recipient’s favourite Christmas carol is “What Child Is This?” (specifically the Fischer – Domingo performance). This song was written to the tune of “Greensleeves”, a late XVI. century English folk song. While Domingo is not my cup of tee, it’s still a nice bond that on the other hand, John Coltrane’s reinterpretation of “Greensleeves” is one of my jazz favourites.