What would you do with 2,047 pieces of glass, 6 kilograms of lead solder, and hundreds of hours of your time?
Why not make a beautiful Tiffany lamp?
Helen soldering the finishing touches of a Tiffany lamp
A Tiffany lamp starts its life as pieces of coloured glass and coils of metal solder — 2,047 pieces of glass and 6 kilograms of solder in this case.
Sheet glass on display, Finn's Art Glass
You buy glass in large sheets. The 2,047 pieces of glass for the lamp are cut from these sheets. Glass is unforgiving. It's not a matter of drawing the shape you want and cutting it out like you would with paper. With glass, you score one line at a time and snap the glass along that line. Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don't.
Mounted pattern
Mounted pattern showing glass pieces
After the pieces of glass are cut from the sheet, they are individually ground into shape so they all fit together precisely. This a process of trial and error. You grind a little, see how the piece fits with its neighbours, and grind a little more, until you get a perfect fit.
Box of cut glass pieces
Glass piece sitting on lamp
Copper foiled glass pieces in-place
The cut edges of the glass are covered with a layer of copper foil. Copper foil is like sticky tape, but made out of copper instead of plastic. Its main purpose is to give the solder something to stick to when you start assembling the lamp- the solder won't stick to glass. In the meantime, the copper foil puts a protective layer between the sharp edges of the glass and your vulnerable fingers.
All the pieces of glass start to look the same after a while. You need a way of keeping them in order. As each piece is finished and the edges covered in copper foil, it is assembled on a polystyrene mould. The mould gives the finished lamp its bell shape. It doesn't hold the entire lamp, it holds a panel making up one fifth of the finished lamp. The pieces of glass are held in place on the mould with sewing pins.
Soldering a copper foiled piece of glass
Once all of the pieces of glass for the first panel are in place on the mould, it's time to start soldering. The solder is a mixture of tin and lead. It is melted using a soldering iron, and the molten solder is painted over the joins between the pieces of glass. The solder hardens and holds the glass pieces together. You remove the sewing pins holding the glass in place as you solder- you don't want them sticking out of your finished lamp.
Finished panel resting on the pattern
When all of the pieces of glass on the mould are soldered together, the first panel is finished. You take the panel off the mould, wrap it in bubble wrap, and store it away carefully. The mould is now free for you to repeat the process for the remaining four panels.
Fast forward four years. The final panel is complete.
Now it's time to put the panels together and turn them into a lamp. The panels need to be soldered together, but first you need to find a way of holding them together temporarily.
Mark's lamp scaffold
Bottle lid assisted scaffold
It helps to have a handyman in the house who can make up a custom frame to hold the entire lamp. This frame is made of rotating wooden discs supported by a stand that sits on the table or workbench. The glass panels fit on the outside of the discs. The ends of the stand come off so you can slide the finished lamp off the frame.
Even with the custom made frame, getting the panels together took four pairs of hands, cable ties, and lots of electrical tape. At this stage, the lamp is at its most fragile. The priority is to solder the panels together, but at this stage, there are only two pieces of glass on each panel that touch.
Panels being taped into place
The panels are held together by a collection of pieces of glass called bridging pieces. Like all the other pieces of glass, the bridging pieces need to be cut and ground so they fit perfectly. Soldering the bridging pieces into place more difficult than soldering the pieces in the main panels. The bridging pieces don't have the support of the mould to keep them in place as you solder.
Panels safely taped and tied in place
As the bridging pieces go in, they pull the two panels together. It's important to check that the other panels still line up and will come together when their bridging pieces are added.
All the bridging pieces are in, and the lamp looks finished, but it's not quite there yet. The bottom edge of the lamp needs to be wired to give the lamp more strength and help support the weight of all the glass and solder. A continuous piece of thin wire is attached along the bottom edge of the lamp. It is shaped to fit the intricate curves of the glass, and covered in a layer of solder. Once covered in solder, the wire should be invisible.
Helen and Mark working on the bridging pieces
A hidden wire helps support the lamp's edge
The lamp isn't going to shine without some way of affixing a light globe inside it. A metal gadget called a 'spider' needs to be put inside the lamp to hold the light fitting and attach the lamp to the lamp stand. The spokes of the spider are bent downwards, and soldered along the solder joins already inside the lamp.
Ian's custom spider propped into place
The commercially available spiders were too small for this lamp. Thankfully, there was another handyman in the family on hand to custom make one that would fit.
Ian's custom spider propped into place
All that is left are the finishing touches. First on the list is touching up the soldering so it looks as neat and even as possible. This process can go on forever, there will always be another little bit that could be better. At some point you just have to stop and decide it's done. Once you've reached that point you can clean it with lots of soapy water and an old toothbrush.
Helen cleaning the lamp with a toothbrush
The final step is applying patina. Patina is a polish that takes the shiny edge off the solder and gives it a uniform colour. Patina comes in a number different colours, depending on how you want the finished lamp to look.
Inside the finished Tiffany lamp
The lamp has completed its journey from a pile of glass and lead, to a family heirloom ready to light up the lounge room.
To discover more about Tiffany lamps, take a look at our hand picked selection of books in the Handmade Tiffany Lamp store.
