Photo: Glowing Wood Sculptures
Artist Billy Hall uses a lathe to sculpt whole wood blocks thin enough to be used as lampshades. The shades are usually between 1/32 and 3/32 of an inch thick and coated with epoxy. Pictured above is "Luna", a globular design made from Southern Yellow Pine.
http://www.glowingwoodsculptures.com/gallery.htm via DudeCraft
I'd be tempted to add a layer of very fine glass fiber tissue to the epoxy inside. You'd never see it, but it'd hold the whole thing together better in the fluctuating environment of a lampshade.
If you use epoxy on wood that thin, it gets impregnated through and through. And then it is the woodfabric with the epoxy itself that gives enough support and crosslinking within the material. One only has to use an extra layer of glasfiber if the wood cannot get impregnated inside-out.
My Friend from the Balsams resort in Dixville NH, Peter Bloch has been doing this for years. Check his stuff out at woodshades.com
Ben Webster