tips on making veneer lampshades?

[D K Woods]

Quite by accident I discovered that my redwood burl veneer is breathtaking when lit from behind, so I'd like to make a lamp using that veneer as a lampshade. Has anyone here made veneer lampshades before? I've seen a few places online selling them. Got any tips?

What kind of finish would you suggest using? I've been using the Formby's "Tung Oil" (taken with a grain of salt of course) lately, how would that work? Would it block any more of the light?

How much do I have to worry about flamability? As long as there are plenty of inches between the bulb and the veneer this shouldn't be a problem, right?

The devil...uh...Martha Stewart had a tip online about making simple veneer lampshades and mentioned that the heat from the bulb will dry out the veneer over time. But her directions didn't include a finish at all. Will this make any difference?

If there are any other tips/suggestions/warnings please advise!

I anyone has some redwood burl veneer (mine is 1/40" thin) hold it up to a bright light right now! It's quite a treat.

david

[Andy Dingley]

Oil improves light transmission, but suffers from problems with age yellowing. Try mineral oil, but I'd probably use beeswax instead.

Flammability isn't a problem, but prolonged heating will discolour it. Make a prototype, check you have enough ventilation, and measure the surface temperature.

There was an article (FWW ?) on turned lampshades a while back. Some guy was taking huge logs and turning them right down to veneer thickenesses.

[Traves W. Coppock]

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 02:02:33 +0100, Andy Dingley Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

i saw that guy doing his thing on DIY's "i did it myself" thing between shows...awsome lookin, but i wonder about splitting and the like myself.

Traves

[D K Woods]

I found the page on him at DIY though and they *are* pretty...

but it seems kind of wasteful to me. Says he was using New England Aspen. Although I think I'm going for something different than he is. I like the redwood burl not for the light transmission, but I think of it as kind of like a tiffany-lamp style shade. You're not going to light a room with it very well, but the color is simply tremendous! But turning a block of redwood burl into veneer-thin wood? not likely...

david

[Steve Wolfe]

You could always use a thin parting tool, and turn out *multiple* venner-thin shades, kind of like the fellows that get multiple, stackable bowls from the same block.

steve