Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Wooden Lamp Shade
Alan, Montana
>After seeing Ed Snow's pic of his lamp with wooden shades I decided to post a pic of one I made a few years ago using spalted maple for the shade and hard maple for the frame. My idea on this one was to join a bunch of kites together. This hangs over the dining table. First photo is unlit.
Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Alan, Montana
>Here it's lit up.
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia
>I really like the "lit up" photo. Is it mostly for accent lighting or do you get some direct lighting underneath it?JR
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Alan, Montana
>It gives off a fair amount of light, quite a bit more than what the picture indicates. You can read the paper by it pretty well. It's designed to mostly provide reflected light and uses four bulbs. I was trying to get away from exposed bulbs. A lot of fun to build, took all of my math skills to calculate the joinery angles. Also was an excuse to build a light table for final thicnessing of the panels.
Very, very cool!
Bruce, a MN Galoot
>
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida
>Well isn't that nice! I must confess that when I saw the first photo, I thought that it would not be a practical lamp - but the second photo showing the translucence is beautiful. How thick are the panels?
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Alan, Montana
>Pretty darn thin. I resawed as thin as I could on the bandsaw (<1/8"), planing the board each time I resawed to get one smooth face. I epoxied the smooth face of the panel to glass that was pre-cut to the right size/shape and then handplaned and scraped them on a light table to get the right thickness. It didn't take too long to plane them down. The hardest thing was cutting the glass, I think if I do it again I'll use clear plastic.
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida
>I did not pick up from the photo that you have glass over the wood. I hate trying to cut glass.
Re: Wooden Lamp Shade, 2nd pic
Alan, Montana
>Actually, the glass is behind the wood, you can't see it without climbing onto the dining room table, and even my wife is not that patient. Yeah, it was a pain to cut. I think clear plastic would work better. It's lighter, easier to cut, and the clarity isn't really an issue when you have a piece of wood over it.