Lamp shade structure and method for assembling same

Claim 1

A lamp shade construction comprising: a frame having a top peripheral band, a bottom peripheral band and vertically oriented strut members extending between said bands in a predetermined shade configuration; a sheet of flexible base material wrapped coterminously about said frame having a single lapped side seam therein; said base material having its obverse face coated with a contact adhesive layer to provide a self-adhering side seam; said vertically oriented strut members defining a plurality of discrete obverse surface panels therebetween; a like plurality of conformally shaped discrete applied panels of decorative material adhered to said surface panels by said contact adhesive, adjacent pairs of said applied panels defining vertically oriented seams; elongated seaming ribbon means adhesively secured to said applied panels coterminous with and overlying said seams to mask the latter; and elongated border ribbon means extending around the top and bottom periphery of said shade forming top and bottom borders on said obverse surface and overlying said peripheral bands to mask the latter; said border ribbon means being adhesively secured to said shade.

Claim 13

The method of constructing a lamp shade from a plurality of discrete decorative surface panels overlying a sheet material substrate on a wire shade frame comprising: covering a wire lamp shade frame having a top and bottom band and connecting struts therebetween with a single sheet of flexible base material juxtaposed with said struts and coated on its obverse face with contact adhesive; overlapping said sheet on itself along one of said struts to form a self-adherent lapped side seam; applying adhesive means to the inner surface of said sheet coterminously with said struts to adhere said sheet thereto; trimming said sheet to conform to the top and bottom configurations of said frame; said obverse surface of said sheet being covered with a peelable protective layer in discrete removable sections; removing said peelable layer one discrete section at a time to selectively expose said contact adhesive; applying conformally shaped discrete sections of decorative material to said exposed contact adhesive section by section until the entire obverse surface has been covered thereby with seams extending between adjacent discrete sections; providing ribbon material the length of said seams; applying adhesive to said ribbon material; covering said seams by overlying said seams with said ribbon material and adhering said ribbon material to said adjacent decorative sections; providing strip material of sufficient length to peripherally border the top and bottom of said shade; applying adhesive to said strip material; and adhering said strip material to the top and bottom edges of the obverse surface of the shade and folding said strip material inward to cover said top and bottom bands to mask the latter and the exposed ends of any ribbon material adjacent said bands.

Claim 14

The method of constructing a lamp shade from a plurality of discrete decorative surface panels overlying a sheet material substrate on a wire shade frame comprising: covering a wire lamp shade frame having a top and bottom band and connecting struts therebetween with a single sheet of flexible base material juxtaposed with said struts and coated on its obverse face with contact adhesive; overlapping said sheet on itself along one of said struts to form a self-adherent lapped side seam; applying adhesive means to the inner surface of said sheet coterminously with said struts to adhere said sheet thereto; trimming said sheet to conform to the top and bottom configurations of said frame; said obverse surface of said sheet being covered with a peelable protective layer in discrete removable sections; removing said peelable layer one discrete section at a time to selectively expose said contact adhesive; applying conformally shaped discrete sections of decorative material to said exposed contact adhesive section by section until the entire obverse surface has been covered thereby with seams extending between adjacent discrete sections; providing ribbon material the length of said seams; applying adhesive to said ribbon material; covering said seams by overlying said seams with said ribbon material and adhering said ribbon material to said adjacent decorative sections; providing strip material of sufficient length to peripherally border the top and bottom of said shade; applying adhesive to said strip material; and adhering said strip material to the top and bottom edges of the obverse surface of the shade and folding said strip material inward to cover said top and bottom bands to mask the latter and the exposed ends of any ribbon material adjacent said bands.