The copper foil tape I needed to finish the stained glass shades for my Arts & Crafts sconces came, and I took today off work to play in the shop (and clear my head of work nonsense).
I’m pretty close to having the sconces done, but I was so eager to see if it was all going to fit together and work out that I took one stained glass shade through to completion so I could test assemble a sconce. I’ll give away the ending, it all fits OK. There are a couple of details I may want to tweak in the design, but nothing major.
Copper foil tape. For what it’s worth, after using this brand I don’t like it. It’s thinner than the stuff I have been using and it tore really easily when wrapping the glass. Too bad I bought three rolls…
Parts foiled, lined up for soldering
Front soldered
This is the back after soldering the front. I was able to solder the back on these without re-melting the fronts and having to re-work the beads to make them attractive
Soldering the four panes and the copper piece to fit the lamp socket was a learning experience. My first one came out s0-so, I think the next will be better. Soldering an unsupported seam with gaps is a little tricky. I used blue tape to roughly position the parts in place, then tack-soldered one joint at a time, tweaking it to get the best alignment I could. Once all four parts were tack soldered I fit in the copper adapter and soldered it in place, then I soldered the seams.
Once it was all soldered it was the usual drill of washing the flux off, applying a black patina (a chemical that turns the solder black) then washing again, and finally using a special polish/wax to finish it off.
Parts for the shade
First seam tack soldered
One shade finished, with backlighting to show off the colors in the design
Same part without backlighting to show the iridized finish on the glass
Test assembly to verify everything fits and lines up OK
Sweet looking. Any pics coming with it in place and lit?
Thanks Ralph.
I finished the other shade last night, I’ll assemble and wire the sconces today but then I’m probably stuck for a little while.
To install them I need to cut into the drywall in the room and put in two new junction boxes and run wiring… The switch is on the opposite wall from where I want these sconces. I don’t want to get caught up in that work, so I’m hiring a guy to do the drywall, wiring and painting in the room. But I think it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get him up here to do the job.
Right now it’s Saturday morning, I have 30 minutes of assembly work left on these, another 30 minutes to clean up the shop and organize things, and no wood for a new project in sight. Poor planning on my part.