Armstrong store in Atlanta

Not exactly supporting the 3 tier system is it? The only knock is that the Chinese glass is mostly really ugly. It is getting better, but you can't put 100's of hours into a Dragonfly and look to save $25 bucks using cheap glass can you?

The only knock is that the Chinese glass is mostly really ugly. It is getting better, but you can't put 100's of hours into a Dragonfly and look to save $25 bucks using cheap glass can you?

*************** I thought most of the pieces I looked at were beautiful, but my experience is very limited. The one thing I did notice is that most of the opal glass was too transparent to suit my tastes for a lamp. I want to look at the lamp, not the bulbs. My test was to be able to see the shadow of my fingers on the other side of the glass with a moderately lit backdrop, but not be able to make out the creases between my finger joints. Does that sound about right? I made a list of the glass I thought would work and I liked. It came to about 25 types.

Here in a few weeks I hope to travel up to Kokomo and check out their selection.

And speaking of lamps, I'm going to start on the Worden Tulip as soon as I get back home from Atlanta. It's going to be the guinea pig before the Odyssey lamps. I've still got some vacation coming. I'm thinking about taking three or four days and going for a big jumpstart on it. This is a terrible thing to say, but I'm not going to be a real stickler for quality on the first one. More than anything I just want to run through the process and get a warm fuzzy for it. After watching the Porcelli video, I know that I want to take the pattern somewhere and get however many copies of the design it takes for the entire thing before I cut it out and don't have anything to lay them out on.

Michael

Michael, be real careful, you could over organize yourself out of having fun.

Don't take everything on the Porcelli DVD , or anyone else's word, as being the "end all be all" official word for how to build a lamp. Enjoy it, the entire process. Use one or two patterns and stack the glass up, who cares? no big deal, stack the repeats one on top of the next, so what??

and if you see a glass you like and it is not overly dense, use it anyway.

I have restored an awful lot of original Tiffany lamps and what the glass did was block the glare from the bulbs, not the view of the bulbs them selves. Don't hold much to that school of thought. I have made a great many lamps where the bulb was obvious as hell, but there was no glare from it because of the glass. and the best glass, by whatever manufacturer is the one whose glass has a particular "fire" or glow when used in a lamp. I have never worried about the shape of or seeing the light bulb, but I don't want a glare from it attracting my eye.

A good thing to do is visit a couple of antique shops, then lighting stores in your neighborhood, and see what's being used and how it looks lit up. Oh by the way, you may not want to look at the prices...

Don't take everything on the Porcelli DVD , or anyone else's word, as being the "end all be all" official word for how to build a lamp. Enjoy it, the entire process. Use one or two patterns and stack the glass up, who cares? no big deal, stack the repeats one on top of the next, so what??

***************** That is good advice. I see the Porcelli method as only one solid method of doing the lamps. But it is the first complete beginning-to- end process that I've seen.

So far I have seen three different methods for cutting the glass for a lamp, cutting directly around the cut-out pattern piece (Porcelli), drawing around the cut-out and then cutting, and cutting from a light table. Right now I'm favoring Porcelli's method. Cutting from a light table and drawing around the piece both seem to add extra chance for error into the mix.

Michael

Here's a trick that works well, and similar to what the German fellow is doing.

When doing multiple repeat lamps, use a piece of clear DS glass as a base, spray the front of your Mylar(Odyssey) pattern with spray mount and stick it to the glass, smoothly.

Put the glass on the table, pattern up, so that puts the glass between you and the pattern face, stick down a clear material, ( ie: clear contact paper, or clear sandblast resist,various thicknesses) use a sandblast pattern cutter, electric type, or exacto knife to cut out the resist, use that for a stickable pattern for cutting around and grinding to( if you grind, be careful to not change the pattern dimensions). You have cut the pattern one time, no holding it with your thumb, and it is reusable for multiple lamps, never cut the pattern again. and it works over a light table to see the color and density of each piece, no guesswork as to how it will look.

I'm going to take a long lunch tomorrow and head back to the store and buy some scraps to do the small amount of brown and pink in the Worden tulip lamp. I'll buy about 5 times as much as I think I'll need just to cover the spread.

Michael

Waste on a window with big pieces may require 2 or 3 times the amount as measured, but lamps with small pieces only need as little as 10-20% more glass than is prescribed.

Waste on a window with big pieces may require 2 or 3 times the amount as measured, but lamps with small pieces only need as little as 10-20% more glass than is prescribed.

************ Thanks for the comments, Glassman. At least I'm not totally out in the weeds. I was a little stunned by the waste in my first two windows. It amounted to more than the square footage I had in the window.

I got a couple nice colors today, pink and brown. I've got to head down to the store and buy some tape so I can repackage them before the flight home tomorrow.

It will be nice to be home for a while. I've been on travel five out of the last six weeks. I'm tired of living in hotel rooms. I'm also looking forward to being able to come home and cut glass for a couple hours after work.

Michael