DIY MICA LIGHT FIXTURE LENS

There was a large drum pendant in my rented room that did not have a lens. Laying in bed meant staring directly up at this accosting big light bulb. I tried to remove the pendant at one point, but due to the strange way the pendant was mounted on an abandoned gas line (quirks of living in a San Francisco Victorian) I couldn’t remove it without damaging it.

That is when I decided to create a lens to simply drop into the existing drum pendant and soften the light in my room. I noticed there was a little lip at the bottom of the drum pendant that I could easily just place a diffusing lens on top of without much fuss.

I wanted something with a little more detail than your typical frosted white diffusing lens, and thought I might be able to use large mica flakes on a plastic lens to create a unique moonlike glow.

Mica is a beautiful translucent stone that naturally occurs all of the world. There are different colors, the rarest being white/clear. Brown and Green Mica also exist! Mica dust is often used in makeup to create a shimmering effect.

For this project I used:
A custom sized acrylic disk (thickness + diameter) - there are many companies that can do this, but I went to a local plastics company in San Francisco called TAP Plastics.
Large White Mica Sheets/Flakes
White Glue
Optional: Mica Dust to mix into the white glue for
a little extra shimmer)
Disposable plate
Paint brush

You can easily buy “large mica sheets/flakes” online. Be sure to do a little research about where the mica is coming from, as there are some parts of the world that use child labor and other questionable labor practices. Most mica bought in the United States is from Canada and there shouldn’t be any issues there.

You’ll need to gently pull apart the mica stones to get a thin flakes of mica that you can glue onto a plastic disc.

Take the acrylic disc, and remove any protective plastic from one side of it. Keep the protective coating on the other side and lay it on your work surface with the protected side down.

Pour white glue onto a disposable plate and here you can add 1-2 teaspoons of mica dust and mix it into the glue for extra shimmer.

Note: Mica dust is very bad for your lungs, and while one project like this probably won’t kill you, if you end up doing a lot of projects with this material, wear a mask to prevent any unnecessary particulates from ending up where they should not!

Take the paint brush and add a thin layer of glue on the unprotected side of your disc, I preferred to do it in sections so I didn’t feel rushed to put flakes down before the glue dried.

Don’t be afraid to overlap edges slightly as this creates more variation in the light diffusion once finished.

Once dry, remove the protective plastic coating from the bottom side of the disc. Now your lens is ready to place on the lip of the edge of your light fixture.