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Keeping these techniques and tips in mind will help you achieve a more professional finish to your work. Use the variations and the color in the glass to make your lampshades more interesting. Different textures of glass add another dimension. Choose the shape that you prefer, or that best suits your base: with that shape you can design your own lampshades to suit a particular room, the the colors in the room, the period or any decor. TIP: When Choosing glass for a lamp, hold it in front of a normal household light bulb, not a fluorescent light, to see its true colors. When cutting out the lamp, be as accurate as possible, making sure the outside edge of each panel is straight and just inside the edge line of each pattern piece. If you are not accurate, you will find when you place the pieces of glass in the jig that the sides are uneven, and the pieces will be either too small or too big. This will cause the lampshade to cone together out of shape. Or leave you with large gaps between the seams. Accuracy always pays-your lamp will be symmetrical and well balanced. Tip: When breaking narrow pieces of glass use two pairs of pliers - one to hold the narrow piece and the other to break. It works wonders! Grind and number each piece of glass corresponding to the numbered pattern, dry and wipe clean. I like to use 5mm (3/16") copper foil (use black-backed for transparent glass). Use 6mm (7/32nd) or 7mm (¼") foil for thicker glass. Center glass on foil, run foil around the edge, overlap and tear or cut off. Press sides over and burnish with a lathe kin or pen. When the foil doesn't stick the most common causes are the glass has not been cleaned or high atmospheric humidity. In either case, wash and dry glass well. Place the pattern on the bench and nail wooden bats just on the outside of the two vertical lines of the panel. Place your glass within the jig, adjusting if necessary. Make sure all of your pieces fit snuggly within the jig, here you may have to do some readjusting, maybe you may need to cut a new piece of glass out because you have found gaps to big, or you may need to grind pieces of glass to fit. Now you can see why accuracy in glass cutting will make this step easier!
Paint flux on all foil in sight except the two vertical outside edges. Then solder: don't play around in one area of your panel for too long or on pieces of glass that are thin (tips of leave, etc) as the glass can become too hot and crack - disappointing when you're getting somewhere. Touch the glass to see if it is too hot, move away to the other end of the panel and go back when the glass has cooled a little. Solder a raised bead (a smooth rounded seam) on the outside of the panel, raising it by adding more solder, then turn over and flat solder on the inside. As you get you get to know your soldering iron, your work will become neater. Don't despair at your work, because I guarantee as time goes by soldering will become second nature. DON"T drag the iron along the surface of your seam, that can make it look messy. Don't fear soldering but approach it with a sure hand. To smooth out lumpy areas press iron down (to the glass) and up firmly. You can also run the soldering iron deftly along the seams, but make sure the tip of the iron is touching the glass and foil (and make sure your soldering iron tip is smooth and not pitted and jagged, as you will tear the lead doing this). Always keep the tip filed smooth and tinned. And every now and again, unscrew tip remove from soldering iron and give it a tap to remove built up gunk, if you don't do this, your tip will become stuck inside your soldering iron, eventually rendering your iron useless as you will not be able to change your tip. Getting back to the soldering, have a small jar of water nearby to cool the iron by dipping the end of the tip into it ... end only! If you dip your tip in too far you will short out your iron, and therefore kill it! We don't want this, a good iron should last you quite a few years if you look after it, replacing tips when necessary. After dipping tip in water wipe end of soldering iron on a rough cloth, now your tip will be nice and shiny clean and silver again. Now if there is too much solder at one point, press iron down firmly, take it up quickly and flick it so the excess solder drops off. Soldering will never be perfect, so if you are getting frustrated, go for a walk or have a cup of tea or both! Solder all panels, wash with whiting, rub pattern numbers off with toweling and dry. If you don't finish soldering all the panels by the end of the day, wash the ones that you have finished. Never leave flux on the glass overnight as it will leave stains - always wipe off excess. Soldering a lamp together, cleaning and applying patina should be done over one or two days at the most, as the patina will take more evenly. TIP: I use Baker's or Radiant solder fluid for all soldering (copper and lead) except around mirror joints, where I use tallow candle, as tallow candle won't eat into your mirror backing. This is a personal choice; there are many other fluxes on the market. And I use 60-40 solder for all soldering. Place panels side by side leaving 1mm between panels. (When working with lampshades with only 4 to 6 panels, leave 1-2mm space so the panels won't be too tight when pulled up to the cone position.) Apply heaps of masking tape, electrical tape or sticky tape. Overlap the tape with a ring of tape going around the tops, bottom and middle if necessary. Don't scrimp on the tape - better to overdo it than underdo it, as the lamp could collapse and you would find yourself starting again. So Rule 1: Make sure glass is very clean and don't scrimp on tape. In humid climates, foil and cone indoors or near a fan. Pulling lamp towards your body and letting the edge of it lean against you, put the lamp up (Figure 1) so that edges meet, and secure with tape. Check to see that panels are meeting correctly at top and bottom of all seams and that the bottom edge is sitting flat on the table. Flux all top and bottom joins and tack-solder
It is a good idea to have an assortment of vase caps, as here you can try different vase caps on, and it is amazing the difference the right vase cap makes, it actually tops your lamp off! Flux and tin lightly around edge of your cap, this will make it neater and easier to solder on to lamp. Sit the vase cap on top of the lamp, check to see that it is sitting straight and centered, (you can buy a little 3 or 4 inch spirit level which can come in handy for this!) Now tack-solder cap at seams, this gives the lamp a lot more strength. If there are big gaps between the rim and the lamp, later on when you turn the lamp over to do the inside seams, apply masking tape over the gaps between the cap and glass panes, so when you finish soldering the cap on the outside this will stop the solder from dripping through. TIP: FOR FINISHING OFF CAPS. Some caps will take patina straight away and go dark; (if you don't want a brass looking cap) if patina is not taking well you can try adding salt to your patina (not in your bottle!) Apply with a cotton ball soaked with the solution; if this fails you need to apply clean flux, rubbing in well. Take a little solder and start spreading it around, working it in a circular motion. If it's streaky or lump, too much solder has been applied (see Soldering techniques). And the other alternative is to leave the cap brass and polish with Basso. Solder blobs of solder all the way down each seam (Figure 2). If the solder begins to run, move further down the seam and come back in a minute. Keep on applying solder until you can't see and daylight between seams. This means that when you smooth the solder out, you won't have to apply much more to achieve a nicely rounded seam.
Turn the lamp over and lat it on the bench, then solder the seam that is closest to the bench. Solder all seams, rotating the lamp as you go. When they are done, turn lamp over. Hold the lamp so that the seam you are working on is horizontal to the bench (Fig 3). Hold the lamp very still and finish off the seam by making a nice rounded bead (see Soldering Techniques). When all seams are beaded, place the lamp on a folded towel or thick sponge and run copper wire around the bottom (Figure 4). Stretch the wire over your flux brush to remove any kinks, tack solder and continue to press the wire against the rim of the lamp, tacking as you go, and overlapping at the end. Cut with lead cutters then go back around base of lamp and bead-solder.
Clean the lamp with whiting, water and a piece of toweling. Rinse. Patina with a fine paintbrush or cotton, trying not to let patina touch the glass too much (it is inevitable but beware as patina can leave faint marks on the glass permanently). Continue to run water over the lamp, washing off patina as you go. Patina inside as well. Clean patina off with whiting and water gently. Then towel dry. Apply stove-black polish with a toothbrush, paying attention to all soldered areas, and when dry polish with a soft shoe brush. Sometimes there will be excess polish smeared on the glass - if you need to, dampen a cloth and wipe the glass only-then fin ito, you are finished! If you break a piece of glass during construction of your lampshade it's easier to repair once the lamp is finished to cleaning stage. These instructions apply to any broken glass in a foiled project. Score the surface of the broken piece, crisscrossing it in all directions, then with safety glasses on, tap the underside if the glass with the end of your glass-cutter. The glass will crack and fly about, remover as much broken glass as you can with pliers or tweezers. Heat up your soldering iron, apply flux to the solder which was around the broken piece, and melt it out. Find the end of the piece of foil which was around the broken glass and pull the foil away from the lamp at the same time, smooth, cut a new piece of glass and replace. Now clean and polish lampshade. TIP: Because of the distortions which can occur during photocopying, always check your patterns before cutting. The outside of an individual panel are the most important - they must be symmetrical. |
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