This lamp involved several interesting woodworking challenges. First, my wife wanted a lamp shade with an open top, not closed off as in the design of my Water Lilly shade. Building the wooden lamp spider was a matter of simple jigs to machine the hub that houses the spokes which in turn are glued into the six tapered stiles. The pierced shade rail idea came from Greene and Greene vocabulary. The shade is held together with floating mortices and tenons. The second challenge involved coming up with a simple viable (cheap) home built router table jig to machine my idea for an Art Noveau trunk with a gentle curve that twists 60 degrees as it rises. After several frustrating years, my jig ephony occurred while sleeping. The rest of the design is traditional woodworking to machine the parts and joints and a final set of jigs to machine the glass openings and to assemble the shade parts. Acrylic caulk secures the glass panels. The shade ends up as a regid truss of the rails and stiles with the wooden spider. It rests on a a 7 inch elertiical pipe nipple atop the light socket. The three arms at the top of the trunk are traditional lamp design elements and act as stabilizers.

Launch Gallery