Lamp's (finally) done!

[David Walser]

A few weeks ago, I asked for some help with a lamp base my wife asked me to make. First I asked for some design references, then for help in ebonizing poplar. Well, the lamp's done.

Here's photos of the lamp before assembly and two of the lamp after it was finished. The shade was made by my wife. The wood part of the lamp is 15.5" tall with the base 6.75" in diameter. The poplar was first dyed black and then painted black. (My daughter preferred that look.) There's about 3 coats of high gloss lacquer on top of the paint. If you look closely, you can see a thin gold band my wife added on top of some of the beads before I removed the spindle from the lathe.

Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Tim A. Mitchell]

Looks good. I will have to look up your other thread for the design ideas. I have a shade from a cieling fan light that I will be doing the same thing with. I just have to do a few other things first:(.
Also a stained glass shade, with dragon flies, but not home made. I will finally get some actual light out of it.

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - great job on the lamp! Very nice proportions and details on the spindle! Please let your wife know she did an outstanding job on the lamp shade! Your daughter must be thrilled to get this! Very nice work!

[David Walser]

Tim and Steve,

Thanks for the kind words. I "forced" my wife and daughter to make a full size paper pattern for the lamp base, so any credit for the design goes to them.

As for where to go for lamp design help, someone pointed me to a great resource -- a book that was published in 1919, A Course In Wood Turning. It's available for free in electronic form at http://www.gutenberg.org (http://www.gutenberg.org/). (Search for the title of the book in case this link does not work: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15460.)

The book has dozens of scale drawings of different projects, like gavels, potato mashers (looks like a carving mallet), drawer pulls, hat pin receivers (!) and, of course, lamp bases. Each of the projects is associated with one of the "lessons" contained in the course. To whet your appetite, attached are two of the five lamp designs. The second, with a spiraled base, has a lamp shade that's turned on the lathe out of a segmented glue up.

I've not finished reading the book, but I've had a lot of fun "paging" through it on my computer.

[Curt Fuller]

What a beautiful collaboration! Your wife's stained glass work is beautiful and the lamp base compliments it perfectly. I used to make a few glass lamp shades but was never happy with the lamp bases that were available. I just might have to dig out my stained glass stuff and make a shade and turn a base myself. That's really nice. My compliments to you and your wife.

[David Walser]

Your kind comments made my wife's day.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking lamp David. Well done.