Once a design has been agreed upon, an actual-size drawing (known as a cartoon) is made.
Using the cartoon as the pattern, each piece of your chosen glass is cut, to fit inside the lines drawn.
The assembly begins: Onto a board, 2 pieces of wooden beading are nailed at a right angle over the top of the cartoon, to make a frame.
Then 2 lead strips, known as ‘cames’ (a medieval term, taken from the Latin) - are stretched in a vice to straighten them, and then laid against the beading.
Then the pieces of cut glass are laid in their places on the pattern, one by one, and slotted into the channels within the lead cames.
Smaller pieces of lead are cut and fitted around the shapes of the glass, each end of the lead butting neatly against another.
To hold the pieces of glass and lead in place while the whole design is built up, horseshoe nails, buffered by scraps of lead, are nailed tightly against each piece.
Once all the pieces of glass are in place, the final 2 lead strips of the panel are positioned.
At each place where the leads meet, the area is scrubbed with a wire brush, and daubed with a tallow candle (to help the soldering process).
Each prepared area is then soldered to form a good, solid joint. Then the panel is carefully turned over and the joints on this side are soldered.
Cement is pushed into the gaps between the glass and the sides of the lead channels, to form a watertight seal. Before it dries, the lead is scrubbed with a stiff brush to remove any excess.
When the cement has dried properly, which takes a couple of days, all the excess cement is removed from the panel, and then it is scrubbed again with a brush.
Finally, the whole panel is rubbed with blacking across the leads and glass, which cleans the glass and produces a deep, metallic glow to the lead which brings out the richness of the colours in the glass.