TECHNIQUES
Glasses
The glass we use is carefully selected from that produced by the best glass factories in the world.
Each small fragment, smooth or rough, opaque or transparent, uniform or shaded, of intense or pale colour, is carefully selected according to the place it will occupy in the window.
Fire painting
To the glasses, already colored in paste, oxides of various kinds can be added, the grisailles, to change the chromatic and transparency qualities. The grisailles, at a variable temperature between 600 and 700 degrees, melt by adhering perfectly to the surface and penetrating the glass paste.
In this way it is possible to obtain particular effects and represent images.
This is the ancient and tested technique of fire painting which ensures an unlimited duration of the colors and the paint.
Leads
The single pieces of glass are held together, according to the ancient technique of plumbing, by H-shaped profiles which, in addition to constituting a load-bearing structure, contribute to the composition by emphasizing some lines with their different thicknesses.
Fusing glass
In our laboratories, the carefully selected glass is enriched with cobalt, copper, manganese and iron oxides and then cut, chipped, crushed or reduced to powder and then, in the melting furnaces, it is transformed into fluid pastes which, cooling very slowly , are transformed into relief plates or objects in the round.
Elements of the slabs thus obtained can find a place in the leaded glass, enriching them with suggestive plastic effects.
Intarsia
The Sicilian tradition of mischi and frammischi marbles and the charm of the technique of trencadís, used by Antoni Gaudí, suggested the original technique of glass inlays: colorful glass fragments opalescent that can be composed with shaped elements of fire-painted glass, with figurative or decorative motifs.
Inlays can be applied directly to wall surfaces or stone slabs.
Dalles
The 2 to 3 cm thick glass called dalle de verre, which we purchase in 20x30 cm tiles or create by fusing variously colored plates and fragments, is cut, broken with anvils and hammers, chipped and then bonded with high-strength cements or resins epoxy to form panels which, held by a metal frame or directly walled to the structure, form luminous walls.
Frames and armor
The leaded glass can be housed directly to the masonry in special offsets and secured with an armor made up of iron bars. This is an ancient technique that we have found in various restorations.
Today it is preferred to house the windows in wooden or metal frames whose shape, made of uprights, horizontal, inclined or curved bars, is designed at the same time as the sketches.