Building a Stained Glass Rope Border - Stained Glass Transoms

One of the most common questions I get from other stained glass craftsmen is how to build a stained glass rope border?

Once each strip was perfected, I simply traced the strip onto the borders of the ship pattern.

In 2006, when I was building Lord Terry, I wanted a nautical border for the ship window. I had a large framed painting in my home that had a rope border motif. I wasn't sure how to do it... but I thought what a perfect idea for nautical glass.

I searched for pictures of rope on the net, found one I liked and enlarged and printed several copies in the width I needed. I cut and pasted enough copies together to make a strip long enough to do the longest side of the window. I then took a black marker and traced the lines to define the edges as cut lines for glass.

My glass choice for all the rope borders I've done is Kokomo 61SPLX-V glass. This glass has a very striated brown color perfect for rope, The "V" signifies "vertigo", a fingerprint like swirl on the back of the glass that adds texture to the appearance of the glass. When cutting the glass, I cut long strips of glass exactly the width of the pattern strip and with the grain of the glass running lengthwise. I started cutting at one end, cut off one pattern piece and cut that glass piece, cut off another pattern piece and cut that glass piece. Cutting this way allows you to only have to cut one side of each piece of glass ......the pieces fit together perfectly because they were cut together. Be sure to number your pieces with a paint marker to keep their orientation for perfect fit. I cut the small curves on the outside of the rope as I went along. When soldering those outside rope pieces the gaps are filled in with solder.... so better pick up an extra roll!