Stained Glass Lampshade

This is the start of a post about the steps in a stained glass project. In my case it usually starts with an idea and some random drawings that often only make sense to me and may have only limited resemblance to the final product. In this example I’ll show many of the steps. However in the foiling, soldering and assembly my hands were pretty full and Pam was not around so over time I’ll add some more images or video of those steps.

This lamp was inspired by a group of lamps we saw on a trip to the Roycroft village in East Aurora. The simple arts and crafts style made for interesting rather easily built designs. I was looking for a relatively simple project to hone my skills before some large projects this fall.

In most cases I go from my indecipherable drawings to a graphic package on the computer. This has two functions it makes everything neat and understandable and it lets me scale everything to whatever size my calculations have suggested. This design ended up with a 3 inch circular vase cape surrounded by 16 petals. The base would be about 16 inches in diameter and about 7 inches tall.

Luckily for me my stained glass supplier had just reopened for in-store (by appointment only) purchases and I bought some beautiful glass for this project as well as the big fall projects. The background was swirls of blue and green on white. The accent features were to be similar blue swirls on white. The glass was a little more transparent than I often choose for a lamp shade but I had a trick planned for that.

I print my design on heavy paper or in this case a single petal because they are all the same or a mirror image. My plan is to cut 16 petals. I extended the design about 1/8” inch at the top to make sure it would extend fully under the vase cap (having just made it 3/16” would be safer if I reuse the background design). I then mark the full height of a petal on the glass choosing the orientation so the long axis of the swirls runs down the petal.

I should point out that in this case all the marking and cutting is done on the back of the glass. This glass has a beautiful pebble texture on the front which makes it very difficult to cut. The back was quite smooth making for clean cuts. (note if you’re new to glass there is no right side, use the one you want for your project but always cut on the smooth side). The first cut on a big sheet like this is always scary. Glass sometimes has a personality and after you score it and go to break it along the score a tiny flaw in the glass or a bad score can cause a break across the entire pane away from your score mark. Luckily in this case it was a nice clean cut.

To save glass my plan was to cut each petal by flipping my design from top to bottom. After the first cut, which produced a little waste, each petal was produced with a single cut. Here I’m marking the edge of the first petal after cutting the waste end off (about an inch at the top and 1/4 inch at the bottom). Try not to cut too close to the edge of you waste piece as tiny fractures along the edge can cause your break to leave the score line.

As you can see the straight edge is offset from the marks so that the cutting wheel runs just on the inside of the marks which are just on the outside of the template. This will result in a piece just the size of the template. I do this so that two light passes on the grinder clean up any rough/sharp edges and shrink my piece just a tiny bit so that after foiling it is back to a near perfect match to the template.

Finally the first petal, followed by flipping the template for the second and the repeating until 16 are produced. I labeled as I went at the top (narrow) and bottom. This is to keep the color changes subtle between adjacent colors. Then I cut the narrow (top) end off the template at the top edge of the accent piece and used the bottom (wide part of background and accent piece) to mark and form the bottom of the petal. I flipped the template between odd and even petals to form the zigzag in the accent (carefully marking the sides of template odd and even). Note the running pliers and glass cutter in image.

Next I cut the accent piece off the bottom of the template and marked and cut the bottom of the petals to form the bottom of each petal and a waste piece with the shape of the accent piece but in the wrong color. Again I had to flip the template for odd and even petals to form the zigzag pattern. Finally I used the small accent template to mark and cut the blue accent pieces. In this case, I wanted the long axis of the swirls to run along the long axis of the accent pieces so I cut long strips along the orientation of the swirls (the width of the accent pieces). I then marked and cut the accent pieces again flipping my template to make odd and even accent pieces. In the end 48 pieces of glass make up the 16 templates (note the labels).

After grinding all the pieces to clean up the edges they need to have the edges foiled. I like to do this at a high counter so I can move around and stand up straight. Foiling is my least favorite part of glass work.

My fat fingers are not ideal for this step but I haven’t yet found a tool I like so it is just a matter of patiently applying the sticky backed copper foil to the edges, folding it over and pressing it tight with a burnishing fid (that white plastic stick in the picture). Again care must be taken to keep the pieces organized to preserve the color integrity of each petal and to minimize petal to petal changes.

Eventually you end up with 48 pieces forming 8 even and 8 odd petals. At this point I usually cover them tightly with plastic bags to minimize oxidation of the foil and start fresh the next day. A half day of foiling is enough for me.

To prepare to solder I made up a jig to tightly contain a petal. Then I soldered a bead on the joints between the accent and the background on the back. I then carefully flip the petal and flat (tack) solder the front. In this way I reform 16 petals. With the front side down and the edge of each petal held tightly to its neighbor I then tack solder the petals together to form a fan.

The fan is then flipped and raised to form a cone

(a very tricky process I’ll describe another time)

and the last two edges soldered together. All the seams inside and out must now be soldered with nice beads. I find that soldering the vase cap on first helps keep everything round. In this case I also soldered a rounded lead U came around the bottom to form a nice finish look and protect the edge.

While most people will never see it soldering the inside as carefully as the out ensures the strength of the shade and makes for a professional job.

After the soldering is done the glass and solder joints (i.e. the whole project) must be carefully cleaned to remove all traces of solder flux and checked for any rough edges (which need to be touched up with a hot iron). In this case I wanted the solder to be black so I applied a black patina to chemically blacken the solder.

One of the beauties of glass is seen here in these two shots (above and left) with different light showing the dramatic color changes. After cleaning up all the patina residue inside and out the finished shade is polished inside and out with glass polish. Note, in this case I also tinned the vase cap so it would blacken with the patina.

I built this shade with this base in mind and it looked pretty good. However I had a few similar sized bases to also try.

I think Diana needs a more Tiffany style shade but I wanted to see if something in this size looks correct.

I was pleasantly surprised how nice she looks with this more arts and crafts style. Again note how the color changes depending on how much light is reflected and how much is transmitted.

In the end Pam liked this combination best. I think because she and our base provider put it together from some components he had around the shop.

Here is the final version lit with an Edison style LED bulb which I find has two advantages. First much more light goes down than with a conventional LED. This illuminates the shade more completely but also provides more light where you need it for reading. Second the many simulated filaments are dispersed and each is dimmer so they don’t show so harshly through any clearer portions of the shade. All it needs now is some felt on the bottom and a home.