On Sunday I was engaged in trying to make the perfect former for the next Georgia Jacob lamp I'm going to make on my experimental, creative journey. I came up with the brilliant idea of dismantling the one I bought for £140 and using the shade as a template to create the former.
The plan was to cover the base of the shade in clingfilm and sink it into a bowl of resin to create a negative image. Well that was the plan.
Dismantling was pretty straightforward, except that I couldn't remove the bulb holder from the flex. Not really a problem, as I'm after the basic shape and a bit of flex in the depression could be overcome on the finishing of the former.
The top bit is the shape I wanted to capture.
I mixed a suitable volume of resin and sank the clingfilm covered base into the plastic pot Hay donated as the container for the resin. However, it insisted on floating, so I had to add some weight into the bottom of the shade to keep the base submerged. I used a couple of my contact juggling balls.
After a short while I noticed that the bowl of resin was getting rather warm to the touch. The damned stuff is like a nuclear reactor that's going critical - the more you have, the hotter it gets when curing. Well, this volume was getting so warm that the bowl was too hot to touch.
The result was that the clingfilm melted and the resin hit the shade in several places. I quickly pulled it out of the rapidly setting resin, but quite a lot of it had stuck to the shade.
The heat generated has also discoloured the delicate pink of the shade. Using some gentle heat and sandpaper, I managed to remove the resin, but with not inconsiderable damage to £140 worth of classic design.
I did, however, have the basis of a former in the bowl.
I have a plan as to how to rescue the original lampshade - use some translucent, coloured resin to paint the lower half of the shade - either blue (pictured), cyan or a rose red, with drips or splashes running up the flutes. Complex, but not impossible, although I'm almost guaranteed to screw it up. The necessary coloured powders are on order. OK, it will no longer be original, but it could feasibly enhance it.
On 2nd thoughts, liquid dye might be better of I'm after a translucent effect. I shall experiment.
As for the mold, the intention is to use modelling clay to convert the negative into a positive - and that's on order too. Any missing bits will be shaped with my delicate, creative, sausage fingers to the perfect orientation and then allowed to dry.
Once I have the complete shape I want, I will cover it with a thin layer of pourable silicone rubber to ensure the resin impregnated cloth doesn't stick to the former. I'll also attach it on a pole of some description so as to facilitate natural folds / flutes to develop. A turntable would be good too, so as to allow maximum access all round the shade.
I have a suspicion, after a bit of research, that the original material for the lampshade is woven, fibreglass matting (not the chopped strand stuff), so I've ordered a couple of metres of that too in 80 gsm weight. Being white, I can add colour to the resin I use to cover it.
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