A lightbulb silhouette desk lamp


Although I cut this on my CNC machine, this could easily be made using a jigsaw or bandsaw.

The lamp is made using layers of ply (I used my favourite 9mm birch ply).

The base is simply two outer pieces and enough inner pieces to match the thickness of the lamp head.

I made the lamp head using three pieces, the outers and an inner section cut to allow for the wiring and the light source.

I would suggest first deciding what light to use and then scale the space accordingly.

I was lucky enough to find a 30cm white LED strip powered by 5v from a USB connector. This is intended to pimp your laptop…why? No idea!

This was easy to cut up into shorter strips and pack into the cavity in the inner section of the lamp.

A few notes here:

  • Don’t expect this to be a bright light – although the tiny LEDs are pretty dazzling, the overall effect is quite subdued
  • Some “white” LED strips produce a fowl yellow/green light
  • The strip I had were edge LEDs which was ideal for my application – most LEDs are front facing so you couldn’t easily pack these LEDs in to a small space
  • The LEDs have shunt resistors – be careful things don’t get too hot – wood isn’t a great conductor of heat!!!!!

I finished the lamp by adding a strip cut from a sheet of opaque white plastic. This was slotted into a milled groove in the front/back piece. I warmed the plastic gently over a gas flame and bent it to shape (I didn’t heat my first attempt and it almost bent enough before shattering into a shower of razor-like shards).

Improvements for next time?

  1. Add a switch (this sounds obvious but I didn’t include one and regretted it – see “Mixing it up” for a nice solution using a micro switch and a hidden wooden slider)
  2. A brighter light source would have been good – I have plans for rev 2