Matt's Funky Lampshade

We noticed one of our previous blog subject's Matt Little was suddenly very interested in our new range of Polypropylene Sheet, especially the translucent Frosted Frosted Polypropylene Sheet. Turns out he wanted to make a special Christmas present for a family member and is using the Polypropylene to make himself some very funky lampshades! They are modular and built up from laser cut parts. The concept is based on lamps from Danish designer Holger Strøm called the IQLight.

Matt followed an "Instructable" by Dan Goldwater. Instructables are an on line forum for sharing project instructions, if you've never been to instructables.com you should try it, it's really good. Kitronik has it's own page on Instructables too and from time-to-time we post projects there.

Matt, who is one of the founders at our local makerspace, the Nottingham Hackspace, made his lamp modules on the Hackspace laser cutter. Polypropylene sheet can be cut quickly, safely and precisely on a laser cutter.

These lampshades work great with modern low energy bulbs but should not be used with anything above 40W or any lighting that gets very hot. Matt has wired the light bulbs directly into the lampshades, but please only try this if, like Matt, you are qualified to do it and know what you are doing.

This project used translucent Frosted Polypropylene Sheet which comes in 0.8mm x 1100mm x 650mm sheets from our extensive materials range. We also do a range of opaque Polypropylene sheets, not so useful for making this type of lampshades as they don't let any light through! Our range includes Red, Black, Green, Yellow, Blue and White as well as Frosted and Glass Clear.

Frosted Polypropylene Sheet 0.8mm x 1100mm x 650mm

You can find out more about working with Polypropylene in our handy video guide CLICK HERE! 

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