Update ... Making a chochin style paper and cane shade

1. First, make a form that can collapse inwardly from something stiff, ie not pvc waste pipes.

(Something like the above will do. Made from 12mm mdf, cut up at B&Q by the man with the big saw and roughly assembled together with glue and corner blocks in half an hour. A helpful woman also suggested velcro is useful for temporary structures. It is, stuck and stapled.)

2. Wrap a long piece of cane around your form in a spiral. A long piece can be made by splicing shorter pieces together with glue and then tying with thread. Proper chochin lanterns join their canes with little paper wraps.

3. Get ready to put glue on the outside of the cane, but realise that this will also glue the cane to the form.

4. Attempt to slide some long lengths of baking parchment down between the cane and the wooden form. Be amazed that this actually works, but inwardly appreciate that this is clearly not the best way to do it.

5. Spread glue on the canes one one side of the form. Halfway through, realise this is taking a really long time and that the glue at the top is going to be dry by the time the canes at the bottom have been covered.

6. Lay on a sheet of rice paper and be amazed that the glue is still sticky enough at both ends (more or less). Press the paper gently onto the canes, around round the corners.

7. Start running out of glue halfway through the opposite side and water it down.

8. Switch to diluted pva for the other two sides, using a wide sponge to apply it, and start idly wondering how you'll apply any pressure to the paper inbetween the cane. Accidentally tear some of the paper because you've put too much glue on. Develop irritation.

9. Put the final side on, and be amazed that it looks as good as it does. Most of the canes are glued. Leave the glue an hour or two to dry.

10. Lightly spray the paper all over with water, half expecting it to dissolve into a mess. Be amazed when it shrinks exactly as expected, and goes tight and even.

11. Try to figure out a way of cutting off your waste paper. Remember that on the videos, it came off directly after gluing by slicing with a razor. Try a scalpel and a craft knife, and mostly just mangle and tear the paper. Settle for scissors

12. Remove from the form. This is terrifying and takes two hours. The form was a little misconceived and causes a number of "o I hadn't thought of that" moments. Make many mental notes.

13. Collapse!

As easy as that. I finished up the top of the shade with a few wires to keep it in it's shape, and lots of glue. Actually amazed it looks as good as it does, for a first go. Next version needs a bit more thought put into it, but this, I think, is a proof of concept.

For future reference:

• Make sure have enough glue, of a kind that doesn't dry too fast, and use a tool that can make wide sweeps.
• Make the form more easily collapsible. This one got hard to collapse once it was done up tightly.
• Make the cane contact the form on edges only. No flat panels. Chochin lanterns are like this for a good reason.
• Where the top layer of the paper needs to be sealed to another continuous layer of paper, make sure there is a hard support to press down on. On this one, the seams were unsupported, and so couldn't get glued very well. Also made it hard to trim waste paper off.
• Trim paper before sticking on. Much easier to do it this way, particularly if not doing the above.
• Plan for the top. The top is actually quite tricky. It needs some rigid/tensioned frame to keep the shape, as well as a hard handle to actually pull and push. And some way to fasten it to the underlying scissor structure.
• Plan for the bottom.Not really sure what I'm going to do with the bottom. It needs to be fixed/clipped onto the structure somehow, or have weights or something.
• The shade is surprisingly non-springy. It stays quite where it's put. I expected it to exert more of a downward pull on the scissor, when it was fully extended and held down to the ground. It doesn't. Very encouraging.
• Find out what it is that gets painted onto the edges of the real chochin lantern forms to prevent the glue from sticking. Wax of some sort. Also, what kind of glue do they use?
• Still need to think of some way of letting air in and out of the shade when compressing and extending. This is a bit less of a problem than the old pleated paper shade because the form is strong enough to withstand pressure changes. The old one would just get sucked in against the structure, or have the pleats blown out.

In conclusion

Really quite pleased with this. It looks great, and the execution, while not great, was at least more or less what I was expecting. Takes up a lot of room, and causes some temporary friction with wife.

Update ...

First of all, two unhappy pots. The first is the azurite-glazed piece from above. Didn't glaze it thick enough, and just turned out a bit scummy. There's a nice bit inside, about a centimetre square, but that's it. Hm. The second is my first attempt at aping Jeff Campana (his website here, good article here), whose technique I find genuinely breathtakingly incredible. I would love to own one of his cups and saucers. Amazing stuff. Anyway, it didn't work, and the awful green glaze compounded my shoddy technique into making this Karloffian monstrosity. It's really hilariously appalling.

On the other hand, I had two pieces come out nice:

The first is a version of the re-assembled cup that worked... Except I cheated. This one isn't even chopped up, the incisions are just cut into the surface. It's a hoax. I feel guilty. After the other way of doing it didn't really pay off, it was suggested that I should just decorate the pieces to _look_ reassembled, and it would be easier. Actually, wasn't that much easier, but I was a lot more sure of getting a vessel that held water. Physically at least. Ethically this is leaky.

The second is a whimsical take on a rocket-ship, or sputnik themed coffee cup. The handle is beautifully slender and almost too wonderful, and the legs held up! Until I tried to grind the rough bits down a little bit and broke them off, anyway. It was surprisingly stable, not at all wobbly or top-heavy as I feared. Wonder if I could put some kind of reinforcement in the legs, because this is a cute design.

Update ...

Shipped my first three orders, to my first three wonderful customers yesterday!