I looked at the blocks on Ebay and a lot of the graphics I recognized from www.pccrafter.com If you're not familar with their graphics, you should take a look. They have great graphics. Just click on SHOPPING at the home page and you can view all their graphics....be prepared to spend lots of time!!!

I drill glass block and insert either the LED strings of lights or if I paint something on the block, I insert a single 4-watt christmas light. With the small 6" square glass block, I use strings of 50-60 lights. The large 8" blocks need the larger strings of 80-100 lights. I try to find strings that have some type of blinking bulb type to add to the effect. For the Christmas light strings, I drill a 5/8" hole. A 1/2" hole will work but it is a little tight. For the larger bulbs, I usually make a 1" hole. After I'm done inserting the lights, I cover the hole with a piece of clear shipping tape and soometimes wrap the edge of the block with wide ribbon - works great! The link below has a large How-To section with lots of good techniques for drilling glass bottles and glass block. With a good diamond drill bit and the right technques, the drilling is very simple and the lighted block are neat. Here is a link that might be useful: Diamond Drill Bits for Glass Bottles or Glass Block

Rebar is essentially what you described in your post. It is a thin strip of metal, maybe about 3/4" wide. It can be steel, zinc, iron, a metal that does not bend/inflexible. When used outside the glass, the rebar is placed on its side and is soldered to the joints/solder seams. Rebar from these materials can be challenging to solder since they don't take solder well. You can tin a thin wire (like a paperclip) to soldered seams to hold wire in place and then twist the wire to the rebar. I couldn't see any metal rebar on the piece, which is why I suggested. Where is it located? Usually it is fairly easy to spot since, especially in your piece there are not a lot of straight lines. Rebar can be unsightly since often it goes across the entire piece (in a straight line) and can be visible to the naked eye. Depending on size of the piece, there are often several rebars added (all going in same direction). One can see them in a lot of old stained glass construction, like in church pieces, etc. The preferred method today is to plan reinforcement during design stage and hide it within two pieces of glass during construction stage. Did the fireplace screen come encased in metal channel framing around each piece? When screen was dismantled, was the metal frame around the pieces left in tack? I would think so, since each of the perimeter glass pieces are attached/soldered to the metal framing. Metal framing also helps keep the piece together. I would not recommend using plexiglass. It's too flexible, so I don't think it would not buy you anything. The glass piece is much heavier than the plexiglass. Following your thoughts, a better option than plexiglass, *might* be clear glass. Glass doesn't bend, per say, it just breaks. HTH!

I only need to get the pictures uploaded to snapfish... it's possible the bowl of the boy's is going to be not grouted...we don't know yet, cuz court is in an hour and a half..it'd be a fine bowl, as is..... I need to leave in a few minutes, to the juvenile court house...if his mom gets custody, they will be leaving for Oregon this afternoon. this girl/lady is the same age as my oldest daughter..eleven days apart and is the daughter of a friend of mine, that I've known for 40 years... my friend lives in Corpus Cristie and advised her to call me, when she was at the CPS office, here in town and needed a safe place, right then...man, expedited background checks and a visit from the case worker and CPS case worker, here at the house and my place was approved, right there on the spot... ( I swear, they must have had blinders on...lol cuz my place is filled to the rafters with art supplies and not a lot of space to do any square dancing, in my front room!!) that was last Monday..and here we are, 11 days later and the future is unknown for them but it's a new beginning, either way... Zach went through trama and I watched a transformation, while he worked on his glass piece.. here, on this forum, we all talk about how doing mosaics is a healing process.. Zach got a broken finger, when he blocked a blow to the head, when his dad was beating him up... the dad had also taken everything important to Zach, including little clay pieces he had made, from first grade on...the kind made in the classroom, with clay, glaze and firings...all of his favorite games, his laptop (I think I mentioned he's 14 and is a very sensitive boy)and made Zach ride with him to the landfill...then threw all of his belongings in the dump and said he would have to work to pay for the trip to throw it all away... it was a cruel and needless assault on Zach, both physically and emotionally.... This week's journey helped him take something broken, both from himself and other things and make something beautiful from it.... he first walked in the house with a rather empty look in his eyes.. this morning he's full of hope... I only wish and pray the judge sees the same thing.... I have his bowl and some of my projects, in a display case right now, with an overhead light and it's so pretty... it's a 6 hour drive to where she lives and we've already been talking about her coming up to visit friends and an aunt, or me driving there for a couple days..but not in winter...I would take grout with me...lol the lexel is in a tube just like the GE11 and is 5 oz...it was under $5...I think it was like $4.85 or so.... it's a lot cheaper if it can be found in a 12 pack but then again, I'm not going to do that...lol it's gone a very long way, with just the 5 oz... the number on the tube is 13013, evidently to be sure which one it is, between clear or white or something... at least that's what I noticed, ....it's on the bar code and this one says 31525 13013 super elastic sealant it also says it sticks to wet surfaces...guess that would be in an emergency, to maybe fix an aquarium...?? I'd better be going now, to get to the court house...