The Unimolds complete lamp patterns

As the name “complete pattern” implies there are no adjustments necessary to the pattern supplied. This pattern consists of two Mylar patterns, one that is put on the mold to identify the position of each glass piece on the mold and the other Mylar pattern is the one cut up for the pattern to make the glass pieces from. The third is the flat paper pattern to layout the glass on to organize the glass pieces.

The most difficult pattern to obtain exactly is the pattern to cut the glass from. The way this is done is to assemble the lamp as one would do with the normal template pattern method and add the extra step of cutting the shape of each piece of glass out of a thin aluminum sheet. At building supply stores it is easy to find this thin aluminum because it is used for flashing on roofs.

This metal can be cut with ordinary scissors (does dull them a little) and also can be filed to shape. This metal is held on top of the puttied up glass with double stick tape. The lines between the metal pieces are cut, filed, and adjusted until they are even and parallel.

It is easier to get the exact shape cut in the metal because it is thin so you don’t have to worry about the bottom touching the next piece and spreading the glass out and the metal is easer to file down then glass. The hardest part is knowing the distance to leave between the metal pieces - and quality control, making sure you don’t get sloppy because the gap must be even and parallel.

Once the metal pieces are finished they are laid out on a scanner and scanned into a file. Then the file printed out so each piece of glass is lays separate form the next as it was laid out on the scanner.

When the lamp builder gets the pattern, if they cut and grind accurately, there will be no adjustment in the pattern to get a well constructed lamp. To ensure this a new lamp should be cut from the scanned metal and constructed and any necessary adjustments made at this time. Once assured the pattern is accurate the pattern can then be sold.

If someone is interested in making lamp patterns and feels they would be able to do the extra steps involved they would receive acknowledgement on the pattern packaging and a standard royalty from each pattern they made that sold. (Of course they also keep the lamp or lamps).

If they wanted the artist could draw a design from scratch and summit it to Unimolds for consideration or they could use Unimolds template patterns for ideas.

Contact Unimolds through eBay messages for more detailed information.