New Focus on New Lamp Bases

What I am most known for are my translucent wood lampshades. After making them for 16 years, I have no less passion about making the shades. In fact for the past month or so, my energy level has increased, and I find myself working longer hours and chomping at the bit to get in to the shop, seven days a week.

But over the past couple of years, I have also developed a renewed fascination with the lamp bases t hat hold the shades up in the air, and make them functional. For years, most of my bases have been out of Mahogany. Originally I used many species, but early on I noticed the most people were choosing the Mahogany and ignoring the other choices of wood. Mahogany has a special warm glow when illuminated by the light from the shade, something in the grain and color make it stand out from the crowd.

Then a couple of years ago I began using Camphorwood Burl for a few table lamp bases – see my July 2008 blog posting to learn more about that specifically. The Camphor bases have been popular, and I try to keep 2 or 3 Camphor Burl bases in inventory at any time. It is hard to find good pieces of the wood, and it is very expensive to purchase the raw chunks of the material. So I keep a web bookmark for the source company easily available and try to check it every day or so, to see if anything new and special has become available. Going to that web site has had a side benefit. I kept seeing other interesting photos of pieces of wood that they had, and this winter, I purchased a few other blocks, and expanded my experiments with new species for table lamp bases. There are challenges in this. I get to see a photo of the piece of wood before making the purchase, but that only provides a vague hint about what the wood will look like. And I never know how wet the wood will be – wet wood introduces the chance of cracking in the drying process.

But the result of these experiments have been fabulous. You can see in the photos below lamp bases made from Cocobolo Rosewood, Wenge, Dalmata, and Osage Orange. All four of these show off colors and grain patterns that relate well to the lampshades, and add a higher level of interest and uniqueness to the entire lamp setup. There are two downsides to my experiments with new species for lamp bases. One is kind of funny: I can't figure out how to display all of these new goodies and also keep showing my older "tried-and-true" designs in Mahogany. Second. all these unusual species are much more expensive than the Mahogany, so the that has an impact on the total price for a finished lamp. In this economy, that might be a disadvantage. But..... oh boy to these look great! And I will keep making plenty of the perfectly lovely Mahogany bases.

And I have other pieces in process. I have roughed out shapes for bases made of Madrone Burl and Bois de Rose (a rosewood species from Madagascar). In the meantime, take a look at these photos of completed piece, I hope you agree that this set of experiments is worth exploring.