Veneer Lamp Shade?

[Perry Holbrook]

Anyone here made a lamp shade using wood veneer? Seems like you would laminate the veneer on to something like mylar. If that is the basic approach, is mylar the proper substrat and what adhesive do you use?

Any other details would be appreciated.

Thanks, Perry

[Steve Sawyer]

Boy, I could swear I've seen a lampshade like you describe, a Frank Loyd Wright design, perhaps executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

I wish I could picture it, but knowing FLW's style, it could actually be done with small geometric (typically rectangular and/or trapezoidal) supported by a framework of more substantial wood, so that a substrate to support the veneer may not be necessary especially if the veneer is sealed well so as to minimize movement, and mounted in the frame to accomodate what movement might yet occur.

Not sure what style you ntend for your lampshade, but this is something to consider.

[Jamie Buxton]

I've never tried it, but puzzled a lot about it. The typical commercial sliced veneer is about .020" thick. When I hold it up to a bright light, it is almost completely opaque. No light comes through it. So it seems lamp shade veneer would need to be much thinner -- like 5 mils or less. I dunno how to make sheets of wood that thin.

[Steve Sawyer]

When I hold it up to a bright light, it is almost completely opaque.

I think that the lampshade I saw was veneered cross-grain, so that the pores of the wood passed the light.

[Perry Holbrook]

I just found something called pressure sensitive styrene that appears to be what I need.

As far as lignt transmission goes, I'm currently laying up several large birdseye maple panels and will have some veneer left over. When you hold it up to the light it looks very interesting. We'll see.

Thanks, Perry

[Mike Cutler]

Perry.

I've never made a lamp out of veneer, but this guy, Peter bloch, turns wooden lampshades out of "Quaking Aspen", whatever that is.

http://www.woodshades.com/

Ken. If this link is not allowed, apologies up front.

[Joe Spear]

Quaking aspen is an aspen with leaves that tremble in the slightest breeze. It is very common in Colorado and some other western states.

[John Huber]

I made a prototype of a translucent lampshade. Here's my experience.

1. First, it seemed to me that PVA wouldn't bond to plastic. So I used West System epoxy, which I had used on other projects with good results.

2. Epoxy needs tooth to bond. So I ran a scrap sheet (free from a local plastic fabricator) through my drum sander. However, the first pass failed because the smooth side of the plastic slipped on the sander feed belt. Flipped the plastic over and sanded both sides. Subsequent passes smoothed out the rut.

3. As mentioned by other posters, its best to use a light colored veneer. For example, walnut is opaque at nearly any thickness. I used some scrap quilted maple. Laminate it to the roughened side of the plastic with epoxy. Sand the front face of the veneer smooth down to 220 grit.

4. Translucency is greatly improved if ALL the pores on the veneer are filled all the way through. I used General Finishes Seal-A-Cell, two coats.

5. Result was not as translucent as I hoped. Then I fine-tuned my drum sander for uniform thickness within a few mils and made several runs of decreasing the veneer thickness.

6. Overall result: by the time the panel was really translucent, the veneer was about 10 mils thick and edge-to-edge variation of a few mils was objectionable to me. Conclusion: fun idea, interesting to try new techniques, buy lampshades made for the purpose.