Tiffany's famous Wisteria by Broadland Stained Glass, Gorleston-on-Sea

WISTERIA LAMP SHADE: FINISHED on 12th March 2000!

TIFFANY REPRODUCTION: WISTERIA (JANUARY 2000)

We have accepted a commission to make Wisteria. It will take the best part of two months. The colours are going to be mostly blue. The plan is not to make it the bright colours shown here, but rather with a very pale ice blue background that the Tiffany work shops used 100 years ago, and the fronds go from pale to very dark blue. We took a large chunk of artistic license, rather than use a small range of lilac colour found in the standard Wisteria.

Worden form
Week One (commencing 3rd January 2000)
This week was spent getting ready. It took a huge amount of work to get the glass sorted out. We needed five shades of blue, all in the same Uroboros. That took two days.

We then cut about 200 pieces.

Here's what we are using:

Worden Form	We had that in the work shop before we started.
Worden Pattern	from Decorative Glass Supplies
Uroboros Glass	from Tempsford Stained Glass: Pale steel blue background Blue flowers in Uroboros colours 54, 541, 542, 545. The sheet of 54 that we had in stock had a lot of white, so we have effectively five shades of blue as we go down the fronds. The leaves are in two shades of green.
Base:	Reproduction of the Tiffany Tree (from Kansa Glass).

Cutting complete: 1095 pieces! WEEK SEVEN (Feb 17th, 2000)

We have now completed cutting out the lamp shade. This is what 2095 pieces of glass look like, stacked into 2 square feet of the bench.

Busiest tool: our Diamond Laser 2000 band saw!

Week 3, total 1055 pieces WEEK 8

As you can see, the piles of glass are impressive. The pieces are so small! Thank heavens for the band saw. I really would not have liked to take on this project cutting by hand.

The tiny pieces are almost impossible to manage. As it is, the band saw is saving time and glass. The waste (particularly with a brittle glass like the Uroboros) has been reduced by at least 50%. The cutting rate manually is about 30 pieces per hour, and about 35 with the band saw. These are uninterrupted rates. The effective work shop rates are 22 and 27! Its amazing how much time is used when you change colour, or finish coppering etc., and of course, the telephone keeps ringing.

28TH FERUARY 2000
Assembly is now well under way. We finished tacking together about first of March.

Total number of pieces of glass: 2095.
Total hours cutting: 100
Total Hours coppering: 48
Total Hours assembly: WATCH THIS SPACE!

Now we are doing the finishing soldering. Using an 800 degree tip on the Weller soldering iron. We tacked together with a 700 degree tip using 60/40 blow pipe solder. We have now changed to 40/60 solder to get a quick and bright bead.

The shade is difficult to work on as it is very fragile at this stage. It cannot support its own weight yet. We are having to partly suspend it in space with wires everywhere, so progress is slow.

AND FINALLY (12th March 2000)

At last, after 198 hours work, the Wisteria Tiffany reproduction is complete. 2095 pieces of glass and weighing NINETEEN pounds!

I cannot believe that we have actually got to the end.

Click on the image for a larger view of the complete lamp.
Click HERE for a close up of the shade itself.

When I reflect on this lamp my only regret is that I have not had time to enjoy the finished product. Having had close contact with it for two and a half months, it would have been lovely to be able to sit and admire it in my lounge for a few weeks. It went to London on the 12th April 2000, much too soon for me.

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