Skip to main content

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

Written by ロナルド on . Posted in .

I turned an old piece of wood into a Lamp. My neighbours just renovated their house. They asked me if I could make a lamp from an old piece of construction wood. They had a few pieces of this wood which were waiting for a new life. The wood was originally used for the construction of a farm here in Austria over 100 years ago. When I saw one of the pieces, directly an idea entered my mind. In the center of the piece I would mill a space to glue LED strips in, and the ends I would cover with Japanese paper for decorative light.

I created a model in Fusion 360, 3D printed the holders for the paper and started sanding the wood. A lof of sanding was required, the wood was full of splinters. This is how the wood looked like before I started:

I wanted to keep the wood as original as possible, but it seemed right to me to make the ends a bit more symmetrical. So I altered the ends a bit:

Sanding, sanding, milling and sanding. And the weather was still very good, so an opportunity to work outside:

Meanwhile the prototypes for the paper holders were printed too. They fit very well and needed only a bit of modification:

After more sanding and milling I got my veneer and I prepared the veneer by glueing it on fiber glass sheets. The Japanese paper is also glued on these sheets. The paper is bought in Tokyo from Kamism. This one is called ‘Ame’, which means rain.

Test the LED strips

I did some tests with the LED strips, first I tried 2 strips, but the neighbour wanted 3 strips to generate more light.

Plexiglass

I cut a piece of plexiglass to size, but this might be changed in the future for one that is more transparent. Plexiglass I buy directly from the manufacturer here: The Plexiglass Shop.

And I started preparing the ends too. First I glued the fiber glass on the plastic frames:

Wiring & LED’s

Let’s start wiring, glue the wire and the LEDs on the wood ( I forgot to make pictures of the center LED part). This type of strips doesn’t become very hot, otherwise I should have glued them on aluminium profiles.

The final touch.

The paper is also glued on the end frames. I’ve bent the veneer by steaming it. Then I’ve cut everything to size and applied bees wax on the wood and veneer. Here is the end result, I hope you like it. If the neighbours give their permission, I will add more pictures to this page when the lamp has been installed in their kitchen.

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

Cherry on the cake

Oh, and I almost forgot… As you can see on the first picture, there was a peg in the wood. I used this peg to create a ceiling piece to cover the wire. Together with a plexiglass tube. I glued some of the Japanese paper on the tube and this is really the cherry on the cake! I think the peg is cherry wood :).

Update: Lamp installed

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

An Old Piece of Wood Turned Into a Lamp

That’s it, a lot of new ideas to make lamps entered my mind!

またね (Until next time),
ロナルド

Comments (6)

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to My Newsletter