We have a new puppy in the house, and while this is a wonderful thing in general, it means I sometimes have to get up in the middle of the night to let him out. The problem is I don't have a bedside lamp so I end up stumbling across the bedroom to turn on the overhead lamp so I can find the leash as well as my robe and shoes. Needless to say this does not please The Lady. So, my next project had to be a new bedside lamp.

Like most of my lamp projects this one started with a visit to the junk bins.  At right you see part of an antique student lamp I rescued from the metal recycling bin before the ban on picking at our local dump went into effect.  It's quite nicely made, but this is all I was able to retrieve.  The other parts are from various more mundane fixtures and the bulb at left is a reproduction Aerolux glow lamp. 

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Found this pair of brass lanterns on my way to work yesterday - I used the old "shoelace tie" trick to carry them with me on my bike.

It absolutely kills me how many of these I have in my collection - close to 20 now, I think.  Invariably they are complete, functional, and merely tarnished.  Has no one ever heard of Brasso?!

It makes me happy when people write me about things they've made, and when they've been inspired or have adopted techniques they've learned from the Steampunk Workshop it makes me very happy indeed!

Peter wrote me a while back with some pictures of his latest project, a Jules Verne inspired analog synthesizer with etched brass control panels.  Now, I cut my teeth on a vinyl copy of Switched-On Bach and I've been a fan of analog synth heroes Tangerine Dream since High School.  So I was very excited to see this.

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When I was a boy my father brought home from work a telegraph sounder replica kit.  He was the director of the library for a local college and the sounder kit was one of several museum quality reproductions of 19th Century technology the library had acquired. The lovely brass sounder must have made a large impression, because I have wanted one for my own ever since.

Well, here at the The Workshop if you want something, you make it.  I started my quest by cruising Google image search for pictures and diagrams of telegraph sounders that matched my recollections of the one my Dad brought home.  As it turns out all telegraph sounders are pretty much the same so it was an easy task to collect a bunch of photos and drawing from which I could extract design details and dimensions.

In which your humble proprietor theorizes that; if he can etch into one side of a brass plate he may be able to etch completely through the plate from both sides. A fixture is constructed, current is applied, electrolyte boils and jewelery is made.

 

I have been having great success etching brass plate with a solution of copper sulfate and an electrical current.  The depth, quality, and speed of the etchings have been quite controllable and it seemed to me that I might be able to etch completely through a piece of brass.  This capability would allow me to make pieces of several layers of brass, so I devised a design for a test case.

I'm really happy with this one, the proportions work really well, it's sexy in a Mae West kinda way.

This is a lamp for my bus conversion project, most likely it will go in the bathroom. Total project time was about an hour.

Here's another real quick project, the two donor lamps are below, both came from our town dump this past weekend.  This will be my first lamp with a glass font.  Furthermore, this font has a hole in the bottom so I will be making liberal use of the non-traditional material; GE Silicon II Sealant.