Lampshade Update

Most of our lamps are from the early 2000's.  Nothing wrong with that and everything still works.  However, some of the lampshades are yellowing or otherwise falling apart and I am getting tired of looking at them.  When I ran across a beautiful silk drum style shade at the thrift store, I was happy to take it home.  The picture on the left shows our old shade made of nice handmade looking paper, however, it is hanging on with Scotch tape.  Very sad.

I took the recently acquired lampshade, and since it is silk, I stamped it with acid free pigment ink in a simple design.

The real obstacle to my plan switching lampshades was that the new one was made with a smaller Slip UNO fitting than my floor lamp takes.  This was no surprise since, IKEA lamps are known for this and I was pretty confident I would be able to switch out the fittings.  How hard could it be?  (See the next photo for the original shade fitting, silver, middle right; and the new, larger white ring in the center of the shade.)

Dang, solder doesn't do the trick

Turns out pretty hard.


Nope, not glue either

I first tried to solder it but the solder just rolled off the surfaces---even off my roughed up wire.  OK, so on to plan B.  I tried gluing it in.  I used two different kinds of glue but neither could hold up the weight of the shade with the small contact that the wires made on the fitting.  I did think the use of binder clips to hold the drying components in place was pretty clever though.  :)

Tried screwing on wire terminals

Next I tried looking it up on Youtube.  Probably what I should have started with this step, but surprisingly, it was no help.
So off to Home Depot.  The staff there suggested I put three little holes in the UNO and screw on wire terminals.  I would then clamp the terminals down tight onto the wire.  Again, I had a problem with the weight of the shade overpowering the small contact points with the wire.

Finally in desperation I took apart a second IKEA lampshade and overlapped the wires.  Not elegant but works. 


not the most elegant solution

So in the end, I am enjoying my lampshade but I have to say Never Doing This Project Again. Of course, if I did, I would know how.

Finally can enjoy my lamp again!