Finally, It is Finished!!!
posted by allydog on Monday December 31st 11:03pm
After several months of working on the darn thing, I have finished the Tiffany style Dragon Fly Lamp. I found that I basically blew through the cutting of the glass, grinding the pieces to fit, foiling the pieces and soldering the outside of the lamp. What became a real sore point in finishing the shade, came after I got it off the fiberglass form. During the grinding and foiling process, the pieces were held onto the form using a sticky wax. To get the shade off the frame, the entire project, form and shade, went into the oven on low for approximately 15 minutes. You want to talk about a mess. The inside of the shade was covered in wax. Before I could begin soldering the inside, I had to scrape all that wax off. I spent an entire evening, peeling off pieces of wax that I could with my nails. Then I used a citrus/orange cleaner to really work on getting the wax off the copper foil in the inside of the lamp.
Once that was complete, I had to solder the inside. I can't count the number of times I burned my fingers with hot solder as it dripped onto my hand that was trying to hold the shade. The final step in soldering was to solder a brass ring around the bottom edge of the lamp. At first I figured it would be a piece of cake. I soon discovered that it took a great amount of heat to get the brass ring hot and as soon as I removed the soldering iron, it cooled so quickly, that getting the solder to run and coat the ring was very difficult. I finally gave up on a nice smooth coating and settled for one that at least covered the ring and didn't have any real rough edges.
For the most part, I am very happy with how the shade came out. The one thing I would do differently if I were to make another one is to possible use the Art Glass as it creates a much nicer glow when the lamp is lit. I'm also, not real happy with the glass I used for the dragon fly's body. When I picked it out, I knew it would be dark, but it did appear to have a nice purple glow when it was held up to light. As it turns out, the pieces are so small for the body, that the light doesn't do the glass justice. For future projects, I think I would use a lighter purple for the body.
Ok...and now, here is my latest creation!
Get feed.
Working with the small pieces of glass doesn't bother me too much. There is a tool I can buy that will clamp onto the small piece of glass making it easier to hold while grinding. It also helps to reduce the number of cuts from sharp edges of glass.
The wall in the dining room is sort of a blush color I guess. When I picked it out, I thought it would be more beige, but it turned out to have a slight pink hint to it.