How to prepare a stained glass lamp shade

Preparing a stained glass lamp shade is one one of the most difficult projects that you can take up as a beginner to preparing stained glass supplies. The difficulty comes from two sources. One, a lamp shade is not a plane article like a window or a door and two, because of the above reason, accuracy becomes extremely important while preparing a lamp shade from stained glass. I shall suggest that you take up this project only after you have completed couple of easier projects and once you have become comfortable with the basic operations.

The success of the lamp shade project will depend to a large extent on the pattern that you select. Do not use a pattern that is folded or distorted. It may be a good idea to take the pattern directly from a new book and not from some photocopy.

As we did while preparing stained glass windows, we shall first create the entire pattern on a large piece of glass. The glass will be cut into smaller parts along the edges of the pattern. The idea is to rejoin the parts together to create the pattern on it through the joints. However unlike the windows project, we shall not join all the pieces together at one go. A lamp shade has typically got six walls. We shall prepare each wall separately. Once all the walls are ready, they will be joined together and pulled up to prepare the lamp shade.

Since a smooth joining of the walls is necessary to prepare a good lamp shade, it is extremely important that the edges remain absolutely smooth. While preparing the individual shapes, you should solder them at the front and the back but not on the edges. If some solder gets onto the edges, then melt them away before putting the walls togther.

Most people actually fail while putting the wall together. Even if one of the pieces falls and breaks, then the entire project will need to be redone. That is why first put the walls together using some support material like a wire. Then gently put the walls together and solder them. Once the soldering is over, you may remove the supporting wire.

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