Over the past weekend I attended a MASW course on Making a Stickley style floor lamp led by Kevin Boyle. All of the parts were cut, some glued and some sanding was done. There is a significant amount of work remaining and that is described in the following page. The five photos below show the various parts at this stage: lamp shade, post, corbels, lamp shade supports, and base with feet and post cap.
A quick task was cutting about 1/4" off of the dovetails on the tenons. This was quickly accomplished with a hand saw and a chisel. Care was taken to only remove the bottom 1/4" not the top. The sides of the dovetails on the shade supports were sanded with 80 grit paper wrapped around a scrap of 1/16" thick brass until they fit in the matching dovetail slots in the post.
Before assembly all of the parts need to be sanded to 220 grit. The sides of the corbels and sides of the lampshade supports have already been sanded to 150. The post was not sanded beyond the planer sanding. The corners of the corbels and the lamp shade supports will be lightly rounded. The base was the first part to be sanded. Some burning took place when cutting the base chamfers and this needs to be removed. This was accomplished by sanding with 80 grit as by hand to remove burn marks, then 120 and 220 grit on the base using an oscillating sander. The shade supports and corbels were sanded with either 80 grit or the belt sander to remove the bandsaw marks, then sanded to 220 grit on all exposed sides. The corners were rounded with 220 grit paper.three and one half hours of sanding completed all pieces. The downdraft table easily contained all of the dust.
The base was drilled. A 1/2" hole was drilled on center using the drill press in the garage as it has a sufficiently deep throat. The holes for the screws into the corbels were drilled 1 7/8" from center using a 5/32" drill. These holes were countersunk on the bottom of the base.
The long corners of the post were lightly rounded with 220 grit sandpaper. The corbels were glued on one at a time and held in place with wooden screw clamps as seen in the photo below. After gluing all of the corbels in place the feet were glued to the bottom of the base leaving 1/4" exposed from the top as seen in the second photo. After clamp removal the post was posed on the base in the third photo.
Glue was put in the post's dovetail slots and spread with a small stick of wood. The lamp shade supports were pushed down into the slots and in some cases knocked in place with a mallet. The lamp shade was sanded to 220 grit after removing the tape. A posed photo of the lamp at this stage is seen below. The post has not yet been screwed to the base.
Screws, #8-2", were located for attaching the post/corbels to the base. The screw holes in the base are 1 7/8" from center. This distance was carefully measured and marked on one corbel. After charging the cordless drill a 1/8" hole was drilled with a depth stop set to 1". A screw was installed and the opposite hole in the base was marked. This hole was drilled after removing the first screw. The two screws were installed and the final two holes were marked. After drilling the base was attached as shown in the photo below.
The lamp is ready for finish application. To that end samples of a desired finish were requested. The article uses two colorants to color the wood, Lockwood Early American Maple golden amber dye followed by Varathane Gunstock stain. The first is a dye that must be dissolved in water. The company only sells their dyes by the pound, but they do sell 1 oz. samples, when five or more are ordered. After selecting four other dyes an email was sent to the company in NYC with the five dyes requested. Lockwood should give me a call at some point to complete the transaction. The Varathane stain is available at Home Depot. In the meantime it is back to Sandy's magnolia.
Now that the magnolia is complete sans installing in the frame, it is time to complete the lamp. The next task is cutting the mica to fit. Pulling the mica from the box revealed two things. First, it is already cut to shape and only needs the long edge of the trapezoid to be cut back about 1/2". Second, the surface finish is poor, very dull.
A jig is needed to cut the long side of the mica, which needs to be trapped between two pieces of wood to minimize chipping. A length of hardboard, a long scrap of 1/4" pine, and a small scrap of 3/4" pine will be screwed together trapping the mica between the hardboard and the long pine scrap. The other end will be held together by hand during the cut. The first order of business is charging the cordless drill!
The jig was put together. (The used jig is seen below.) It was simple to keep the mica sheet trapped in the jig and make the cut. About 1/2" was cut off of each sheet. The four sheets sitting in the upside down shade are also pictured below.
In corners where the top layer of the mica has been peeled off the finish is quite shiny and pretty. I am not sure how to replicate this, but will use the cutoffs for some experiments. Sanding with 400 to 600 to 1000 grit sand paper does leave a shinier finish. It gets rid of the orange peel look. Peeling off a razor-thin layer of mica does the best job, but this only works for small patches.
A bit of research was helpful. The mica is probably supplied by Asheville Mica, though you can only purchase 0.015" and 0.030" thick sheets directly from their website. The mica sheet is made from shellac and mica flakes. Sanding mostly removes the shellac. Buffing with a cloth wheel on the Dremel made little difference, though quickly got hot, which might melt the shellac. The only other idea I have for creating a shinier finish on the mica is a coat of shellac. That experiment will await the purchase of shellac.
The lamp needs to be completed this week, assuming the purchased dye arrives. The cap was completed this morning. The center was marked in the 1/4" X 2 1/4" square of oak. The electrical box for the lights was measured at 2 1/8" diameter. This allows two screws to be put in the corners of the cap and accessed after attaching the light mounting box. Two holes were marked in opposite corners at 1 1/4" distances from center.
The center hole was drilled through with a 1/2" Forstner bit with the cap clamped to the table. Without moving the cap, a 3/4" counterbore was drilled 3/16" deep in the back. The two mounting holes were drilled to fit the #6 screws chosen for mounting. These holes were also counterbored for the screw heads. A chamfer was planed on all four top edges of the cap as shown in the photo below.
The dye, Early American Maple Medium Yellow, arrived today from Lockwood. One oz. is to be dissolved in 2-4 pints of water. I am leaning toward more dilute, but will run an experiment before diluting all of it to the max. To this end the one oz. package was dissolved in two pints of hot water with shaking using a 1/2 gal. plastic milk bottle. The water needs to cool before use.
In the future use this site for purchasing Lockwood dyes.
A story stick was made up for stains, combinations and poly, but not much was learned from it. The three parts of the lamp were dyed with the yellow dye this morning. A bit of the dye was poured into a small plastic dish and the solution was painted on with a brush, followed by an easy water cleanup. The parts are shown below in two photos. The shade had mostly dried and is a paler shade than the wet stand.
The first stain raised the grain in places so the entire lamp was sanded very lightly with 220 grit sandpaper and the dust blown off. After five hours of drying time the second stain, Varathane Gunstock, oil based, was painted on and wiped off. It was left to dry for 24 hours before applying the water based polyurethane. Multiple coats of poly were started the next afternoon. Three coats seemed to be sufficient and no sanding was done between coats, but the finish is quite smooth.
Assembly is the final step. First the mica panels need to be glued to the shade frame with silicone caulk. My six year old unopened tube was cut leaving a very tiny hole. A long steel rod was sharpened and used to punch a few holes in the inner membrane. No caulk could be coaxed from the tube, so it is back to Menards. A brief outing later the end of the tube was cut off leaving as small a hole as possible. The caulk was squirted onto the inside of the frame members in a very thin line. The mica panels were pressed in place and then clamped as seen below. I am guessing 24 hours for the caulk to harden.
The final task is wiring the lamp. The cord was pushed through the base and then the post. The lamp assembly comes wired making it impossible to put the top nut and lock washer on the supporting tube. This tube did screw into the base of the fixture, so hopefully that is sufficient holding power. The top cap was put in place and with the aid of a nut and lock washer affixed to the bottom of the light fixture. The wire with plug was first attached to the wire coming from the lamp fixture with two wire nuts. These did not fit into the post's hole, so were replaced with electrician's tape. Two holes were drilled into the top of the post to secure the top cap, which was screwed in place. The lamp was plugged in and worked as seen below. (Yes, both sides were tested! But there is only one bulb.)
When the clamps were removed from the mica panels, the lamp was moved to the living room and plugged in. The final picture is shown below.
