Hanging Sunflower Coloured Stained Glass Bicycle Wheel Sculptural Decorati

This is one of a range of bicycle wheels I have made using the frame and spokes of the wheel as a basis to create a beautiful sculpture. I have attached 24 preprepared  pieces of stained glass to the spokes of the wheel, one by one. 

The first one I made was for the Tour De Yorkshire celebrations which were taking place locally. 

The wheel has a long length of chain attached to the top  so that it can be hung from or  tied to or around whatever, wherever it's final position will be.   

This is another truly unique piece, the only one I have ever made quite like this. It is a very special present.  I can post it to you or your chosen friend or relative with  a hand written 'note from the maker' explaining how the piece was made and, if required, who has chosen this piece, and why.

The start of the design process began with cleaning the bicycle wheel thoroughly, removing all the stickers and grease and unnecessary (for me) coggy parts from the centre ;) !!?

You probably know more about bicycle wheels than I do but I now know that there are a number of different ways that the spokes are arranged which produce different spaces between them and so, as a result, can allow different patterns to be developed.  This was my  starting point.

After lots of drawing and measuring I decided upon a final design and  chose the stained glass to use - the colours for this wheel were chosen to reflect sunflowers as I love the combinations of the different shades and textures and how they interact with each other as they overlap in some places.  

Each piece of glass was drawn out, cut by hand from  large sheets of glass before each piece was ground smooth along each side, copper foiled and bead soldered. The next stage involved wrapping copper foil around the spokes in the places the stained glass was to be attached and tin-soldering each of these sections.  Then each of the  24 pieces of glass  were soldered to the sections of the spokes of the wheel there were cut to fit ie along  two sides of each piece of the glass - 48 sides!!   

Once all the pieces were safely in place the whole piece was bead soldered and needed yet another thorough wash.  The solder had a copper patina applied to it to change the colour of the sodler from silver to copper/gold. All the solder was cleaned again with a good quality polish and buffed up before a final wax layer was applied and finally buffed up to give a good finish.

The chain was firmly attached to the top of the wheel and it was ready! Hurrah! I love it! 

Stained glass in a number of different shades and textures of amber , wire, copper foil, solder,  copper patina, polish, wax,  a bicycle wheel and chain.

Approximately 30" /76cm in diameter.