remembering the unremembered
The lamps continue.
A very open design. The arms are 12″ long. In theory my cutter can do up to 20″ long so I can make even larger lamps. I went down to 14 arms so it all fits on two sheets of plywood.
I like the way it came out, but I might try one with 28 arms.
Material costs
Toal material cost $16
Labor costs
1/2 hours non-recurring
1 hour of recurring
Here is different kind of lamp. This one is lit by two LED votive candles. It is made from plywood, plastic and tissue paper. The wood and paper is cut. The plastic is engraved with the image of a bird sitting in a Dogwood tree.
I did two different images for the faces, one for the large front and back, and a simple flower for the two sides. The candles I got yesterday at Michale’s are taller than the ones I used before. I’ll have to find some lower profile once so the whole bird is illuminated.
Material costs
Toal material cost $2.10
Labor costs
2 hours non-recurring
1/2 hour of recurring
I saw this cool butcher block several months ago and decided to to my own version of it today. It is a man holding a shield, with the knifes sticking through the shield and almost sticking him.
The challenge with this project was getting the pieces of plywood in different planes to all hook together.
Material costs
Toal material cost $16
Labor costs
1 hours non-recurring
1 hour of recurring
I’m into the lamp swing. Today I made a variation of the lamp from day 3. That lamp had 16 slats that were all the same. I made this one a little larger so I can actually replace the light bulb, increased the number of slats to 18, and changed the slats so that they are each different – giving it an asymmetrical form.
I also stained the wood using an oak stain and then put an acrylic coat on it before I cut out the pieces.
Material Costs
Total material costs $22
Labor
Back to the lamps again. Today I made a rectangular lamp with geometric images on it. Each face is different – two have circles, the other two have squares, one face coated by 45 degrees.
I haven’t made the top and bottom of the lap yet because I’m waiting for my order of lamps to arrive. I have an old fashion Edison lamp on order that is 10″ long. I’m thinking it will look good in this one. If it does I’ll finished it as a hanging lamp. If not I’ll probably make it a desk lamp.
Material costs
Toal material cost $8
Labor costs
2 hours non-recurring
1/2 hour of recurring
Today I did something a little different. My wife likes to lay in bed and watch TV shows on her iPhone. She usually sets it on a business card holder. I decided to give her something a little fancier – an old fashion TV.
I’ve seen these before online so I started mapping my out. The thing that made it a little more interesting is the fact that she already has a case on the phone. After a little measuring I was ready to go.
The case is made from several layers of plywood. I stained some of them dark with a walnut stain and other light with an oak stain. There are 8 different patterns to got cut out. For several of them I cut out more than one. The final stand is made from 13 pieces.
The phone slides in from one end. The iPhone 7 plus has both the power and headphone jacks on the same end, which made the design easier.
Once in, iPhone looks just like a little TV screen.
All in All, I like this little project
Material costs
Toal material cost $8
Labor costs
2 hours non-recurring
1 hour of recurring
Today I returned to lamps. I’ve been looking at the different lamp designs that people having been doing and decided to do a wood one today. It is a pretty simple design – especially when compared to the Batman lamp. Sixteen slats, all the same, on two circles. The big difference in this lamp is that the slats come off the right at an angle. This prevents some of the direct light from the bulb.
I used a full sized bulb in this lamp – the previous lamp used a candelabra bulb. This means the circles have to be bigger. I cut the pieces out of a single sheet of birch and then stated the wood with an walnut stain.
I have some longer bulbs coming later this week so I might change the bulb. The big problem with this one is that it is actually to big to go through the bottom hole – meaning I have to take some of the slats off to change the bulb. It’s about 1/6″ too small.
Material Costs
Total material costs $28
Labor
The material costs for this lamp are smaller, but the time it takes to stain the pieces adds to the time. In the future I could stain the whole piece of plywood before I cut it up to save some time.
Christmas Eve was a bit crazy, but I managed to finish another project. This one was inspired by someone at work and living in San Diego. The person at work said, “You should put a clock into these things you’re making. That way they would be good for something.” The San Diego inspiration is our beautiful sunsets.
Yesterday I was at the woodworking store, looking for lamp making stuff and an air-purifier, when I saw the parts to make a clock. I grabbed a set and today I put them to use. I thought about doing a super hero clock, but then decided to do a sunset. It’s a pretty simple design – yellow circle imbedded in a red circle. I found a picture of a sunset, with the sun reflecting off the water, and used it as the texture on the bottom on the red circle.
My laser cutter works in two mode – vector cutting and raster engraving. The cutting was simple and took 2 minutes. The engraving, while simple, took almost 90 minutes to do.
It’s a little hard to see in this picture, but the reflection looks cool.
Material Cost
Total material cost $17
Labor
I’m taking a little time off for the Christmas/New Years break and decided to give myself a goal: One laser cutting project each day. Today, Friday 12/23/2016, is day one and here is the first project.
I started planning this specific project last night, the idea of doing a lamp started about a week ago. I actually order some lights on Tuesday. This first project is a lamp inspired by the Thomas Wayne Batman. Back on September 10th I did a plaque, which is one of my favorites.
So last night I decided to make a lamp based on the same design. It took a couple hours this morning to figured it all out and create the design on the computer. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to get the two-dimensional pieces to all fit together into a three- dimensional lamp – that and incorporating the light and the light fixture into the design. Design done I did a quick run to two different hardware stores, came back and updated the design to work with the lamp pieces I bought, did some test cuts, and them cut everything out.
Black
Red
Clear
I like the final results. What do you think?
The bulb is an LED replica of an antique Edison style Edison lamp. I’m planing on using these lamps in some other designs. You can really tell by looking at this photo, but it does have a different feel than other LED bulbs.
Material Cost
Total material cost $47
Labor
Going forward: Ordering the LED bulbs on line I can get them for $4 and $5 for the cord and socket. In this design I ended up making 12 extra small pieces, which were replaced with clear pieces in the final design, so I can probably get the sheets down to two. That would bring the material costs down to $25. Making another one will probably only be 30 minutes of labor.
Which means if anyone would like me to make one of these for them I can probably sell them $90 a piece.