We have owned some Odyssey lamp molds for Tiffany reproduction lamp shades for many years. I have finally decided it’s time to build one! Yes, we’ve read about how they’re made and we’ve repaired many lamps, but doing something from scratch is always different from reading or watching it done. We chose the 20-inch Water Lily lamp (our original thought was the 24-inch Rosebush Helmet shade, but that was just too much) and set to work.
Water Lily pattern, repeat this three times
The first step, as with all copper foil projects, is to cut the pattern. But according to the instructions (which I read, after initially tossing them aside), you use regular scissors and cut out all the black lines. Standard foil shears won’t work because the pieces are so small and have so many points. And if I hadn’t realized then what I was getting into…
Once all 140 pattern pieces were cut out I started cutting glass. This took about 4 days, because each piece had to be traced and cut out three times, for a total of 420 pieces, none bigger than the size of a quarter (that’s not entirely true, but if felt that way). We laid all the pieces out on a large board, and it’s starting to actually look like something. Now the hard part begins…the grinding!
Blue Heron Glass 