Anglepoise

I loved the anglepoise lamp I had on my desk when I was a kid and decided I'd try to make something vaguely similar out of a plank of cherry that I picked up at a reclamation yard. There were a couple of snags: the board was a little warped along its length and I needed to make thin slats with only a hand saw and a plane.

The double slats are joined with stainless steel nuts and bolts, and the shade, a 40p IKEA flower pot, is backed with a piece of oak. The base is also made from oak which I hollowed out and filled with 1.6kg of lead to give it stability. It was wired with red fabric cable.

This is another piece that sat there for months, more or less finished but not quite right. Eventually, I re-routed the cable, modified the base a little and suddenly it was done. Freshly cut cherry oxidises to a darker shade so this at least dissuaded me from modifying the arms.

I'm generally happy with the result. The only snag is that it doesn't have the balancing springs of a traditional anglepoise lamp so the nuts and bolts need careful tightening to hold the arms of the lamp in position. Fortunately the use of butterfly nuts make this relatively easy.

Dec 2020