Stained glass glossary

A piece of thick clear glass with its edges ground at an angle. Light through the angled edges splits into colours.

Strips of lead or zinc, H- or U-shaped in section, that hold the pieces of a leaded panel together. Each piece's edge sits in a channel of the came.

The full-size drawing of a window that the pieces are cut from. The Studio's cutting pattern is the cartoon, printed true to scale.

Transparent coloured glass, smooth or textured, that you can see through.

A putty brushed under the flanges of the came once a leaded panel is soldered, to seal it and stiffen it.

One choice of glass for every piece of a pattern. A pattern can keep several and switch between them.

Thin copper tape wrapped round the edge of every piece, the foiled pieces then soldered together along every seam. Also called the Tiffany method.

The line a piece is cut to. For lead came it falls inside the lead line, leaving room for the came's heart; for copper foil it falls almost on it.

The face of a came that lies over the glass, one each side of the heart. Also called the leaf.

Glass with thin flakes of colour (fractures) and threads of colour (streamers) fused into it.

Glass with a frosted, fern-like texture, made by drying hide glue on its surface until it flakes away.

The direction of a glass's streaks, reeds or texture. Pieces cut with the grain running one way across a panel look intended; set a grain angle and the cutting pattern prints an arrow on each piece.

A machine with a diamond bit that grinds a piece's edge to its line. Foiled pieces need it to fit closely.

Nibbling a piece's edge back with grozing pliers after it is scored and broken.

Came with a channel each side of its heart, for a lead line with glass on both sides.

The web in the middle of a came, between its two channels. The pieces either side of a lead line are cut short of it by half the heart's thickness.

A curve cut into a piece. A deep one is hard to break out of a sheet and may need relief scores, or a lead line across it.

A line on the pattern where two pieces meet, which becomes a came or a foil seam. In the Studio every line you draw is a lead line.

A window of clear or tinted pieces held in lead came, such as a cottage window of quarries.

Glass with white in it, so it scatters light: it glows, but you cannot see through it.

A chemical that colours solder and came after the panel is cleaned: black, or copper. The Preview shows both.

The drawing of the whole panel you work from at the bench: every piece numbered, every glass lettered, with a colour key.

Scissors with three blades that cut a paper pattern piece out and take away a strip the width of the came's heart, or of the foil, at the same time.

A faceted glass gem, pressed in a mould, set into a panel as one piece.

A small diamond or rectangular piece, repeated across a window's field in a grid.

Marks at the corners of each printed sheet, to line the sheets up when you tape them together.

A strip or rod soldered across or along a large panel so it does not bow under its own weight.

A round disc of glass spun out while hot, thicker at its centre and ringed, set into a window as one piece.

The line a glass cutter's wheel leaves on the sheet. The glass breaks along it.

Clear or tinted glass with small bubbles, called seeds, held in it.

A long, thin piece, likely to break as it is cut. The Studio flags them.

A tin and lead alloy melted with an iron to join came at its joints, or run in a bead along a copper foil seam.

Glass with two or more colours swirled through it in streaks.

Coating copper foil with a thin layer of solder before the bead is run.

Came with one channel, for a lead with glass on one side only: the outside edge of a panel.

Came made of zinc, stiffer than lead, used round the outside of a panel as its frame.