Lettering on glass

I've been working on a piece ( a gift - photos of it will follow once the recipient has it) incorporating some lettering.

Large letters - 2 inches high or more - I tend to cut in glass, using copper foil to solder them into the panel. There are some in the piece.

In this case it's was also necessary to use smaller lettering, using paint or similar to add the required text onto the glass. Traditionally, this would be done in enamel and fused into the glass with heat; modern technology does provide alternatives, one of which I've been experimenting with.

Many of us have used Letraset lettering on paper in the past (younger readers may not be so familiar with it, now that Microsoft Word and the like are used to produce reports).

The photo below shows two tests of black Letraset, applied using a burnishing tool onto white glass.



In both cases the lettering didn't quite go down perfectly, but did give an acceptable effect; however, I needed to protect the delicate lettering with varnish. For that on the left I tried a squirt of gloss polyurethane, on the right I brushed on some clear nail varnish. Both varnishes did soften the lettering enough to cause slight runs, but the final effect of the spray was more than acceptable - that's what I'll be using to protect the text on the final piece (which is complete, apart from the text - I will apply the letraset now the panel has been fully soldered). The nail varnish can be returned to the bathroom shelf!