Have you ever tried to pick out a new light fixture? It’s hard right?! I tried for a long time to find something that worked for me but I just couldn’t find anything that really made my heart sing, you know, as a light fixture should. It was all just a sea of cheap plastic painted to look like brushed metal with LED bulbs leaned way too far to the “cool” side of the colour temperature spectrum. Finally, I said screw it. I’ll just build my own.

When I was designing this project (designing is too grandiose a term for the napkin sketches I did to plan this project, but it’s the only word I could think of) I wanted to create something industrial looking. I wanted it to be something you might see in a cool industrial loft (even though my place is decidedly not cool or a loft). So I tried to lean heavily on industrial materials like the angle iron steel and the big thick chains.

I’m fully prepared for this project to be pretty polarizing. It’s a weird style, but that’s the great thing about making your own stuff, you get to tailor it specifically to your own tastes. Obviously, I hope other people enjoy it too, but I suspect there will be a vocal group of people who don’t link anything about this haha.

Step 1: Supplies

Here's a complete list of all the materials I used on this project:

20' - 1 1/4" angle iron

2 - Scraps pieces of walnut and Oak

3 - T8 4' bulbs (3000k, 90+ CRI)

6 - T8 "tombstones"

1 - 2 Part Epoxy

3 - 5/16 eyebolts

3 - 5/16 nuts

2 - Flat Black Spray Paint Cans

6' - Chain

2 - Clamping Knockouts

1 - Junction box cover plate

In the end, I spent close to $200 on everything. The steel was ~$50, the lights and tombstones were ~$80, the chain and hardware was ~$50. There was probably some other misc bits I’m forgetting, but I’m confident the total cost was sub $200.

Step 2: Cutting the End Caps

I started with these offcuts from my last project. Some of you may have seen my Herringbone Coffee Table I posted a month or so ago

The offcuts are glued up strips of oak and walnut that I salvaged from another wood shop’s offcut pile. If you think about it, in my relentless pursuit of not paying for materials, I’m reusing offcuts, that were already reused offcuts. It’s like some sort of cheap guy dumpster diving inception loop.

The offcuts we’re a little bigger than what I needed for this project. My first step was tracing some lines onto their surface that would then serve as guidelines for cutting these things down to size.I wanted the end caps to be equilateral triangles with sides that were 10″ long. Highschool math taught me that the interior angle of any corner in an equilateral triangle is 60 degrees so that made figuring this all out pretty easy.

I cut along my trace lines using a jigsaw. I’m pretty confident in my ability to cut a straight line with a jigsaw when I need to (and no one is watching, because I have serious jigsaw performance anxiety), but if you aren’t you could also do this cut on a table saw with a miter sled and get a perfectly straight line.

Step 3: Drilling the Wire Holes

Using a cordless drill and a 1/4″ drill bit, I drilled a hole in the end caps. This allowed me to feed the wires that supplied power to the lights “inside” the fixture.

Semi-related side note: I just bought a drill bit sharpener and love it. I have so many drill bits that are so dull they’re basically unusable. Using the sharpener I’ve brought a bunch of them back to life. Drill bits are surprisingly expensive, especially when you get into some of the bigger ones. The sharpener cost me a pretty penny, but it’s going to quickly pay for itself in rescued bits.

Step 4: Sanding and Finishing

Using my random orbital sander and progressively higher grit sanding pads I wore away at the rough, glue spotted, surface of my triangles until they were smooth as silk.

I quickly applied a couple of layers of clear coat onto the end caps. While it’s not really “necessary” on a build like this, I just really love the way wood looks with a good satin clear coat on it. It makes the grain pop and makes the colour of the wood seem sooo much more vibrant.

Plus it should make it easier to wipe the dust off in the future… Because I’m totally the type of person who cleans their light fixtures regularly…

Step 5: Affixing the "Tombstones"

I struggled for a while trying to figure out the best way to mount the “tombstones” to the end caps. They’re designed to be slotted into rails on purpose-built fixtures, not used in some random guys mad science experiment of a light fixture, so I knew I’d have to get a little creative.

I thought about screwing right through the front of them and into end caps. Unfortunately, I don’t have X-ray vision, and I didn’t want to risk my screw making contact with any metal inside the tombstone that carries current and potentially shorting it out. I noticed some two-part epoxy sitting on my shelf and thought “ya… maybe…?”. I was a little skeptical that it would be strong enough to do the job, but, what the hell I already had it. The epoxy was 2 part Gorilla Glue, which also had the benefit of drying clear. Which was a plus because it would help hide the inevitable excess glue squeezing out from behind the tombstone. Also, the packaging had a lot of hype about how strong it is, and I’m a sucker for marketing. Well played Gorilla Glue.

My fear of it not being strong enough quickly faded away. I’m happy to say that this stuff really sticks! I glued the test tombstone in place and after it dried I tried my hardest to get it to off. If I wanted to remove that tombstone, I probably would’ve had to completely destroy it, it was really on there.

Once I was satisfied that the glue was stronger than I was, I affixed the remaining 5 tombstones to the end caps. Oh and please try not to criticize my sloppy glue job too much, I got better at applying the right amount of glue with the subsequent 5 tombstones.

Step 6: Wiring

Next up was wiring. I won’t get too specific here, because I’m no electrician (though I did consult a couple for this project) and don’t need that kind of liability in my life haha.

Basically though, you can daisy chain the tombstones together using 14/2 wire (this is the same wire you’d use for a light switch or outlet in a typical home). Power feeds from one tombstone to the next. Depending on the type of tombstone you get (shunted vs non-shunted) the wiring procedure is a little different. Different bulbs have different wiring requirements too. Some bulbs need power at both ends, some are fed from just one end. If you want to do something similar I’d highly suggest you spend some time researching the parts you want to use and the proper wiring procedure. Don’t just blindly follow what I did here!

I frequently tested my wiring. I wired up all 3 tombstones and then tried the bulb in each one. It works! And man is it bright!

Each tube light was good for about 2000 lumens, so I was seeing stars for a few minutes after this test.

Step 7: Cutting and Bending Angle Irons

My end caps were wired up and fully functional, so it was time to create the bracing that would link both of them together. I used 1 1/4″ angle irons for this bracing. My LED tube lights were 48″ long (including the thickness of the tombstones), and the end caps were 3/4″ thick so I had to cut three pieces of angle iron to 49.5″ long (48+.75+.75). I marked some lines with a sharpie, attached a cut off wheel to my angle grinder, and then made some sparks fly!

“But, aren’t angle irons 90-degree right angles?”. Why, yes they are. “And don’t you need the braces to have a 60-degree interior angle to match you end caps”. Nothing gets by you!

As it turns out, no one makes 60-degree angle irons. Which is a shame, but understandable, since I can’t think of any practical applications for them. So I had to modify my 90-degree angle irons a bit. I switched the blade on my angle grinder to a grinding wheel and started removing material from the interior corner of the angle iron, by removing material I was able to weaken that interior corner. Then, using that bench vice and lot of elbow grease, I was able to fold the angle iron in on itself.

My bench vice is only about 6″ wide. So I would start at one end of each piece, tighten the vice down until I achieved the angle I wanted, release it, slide it down 6″ and then rinse and repeat until I had my 60-degree angle iron.

Step 8: Drilling and Screwing

With the bending out of the way, I was able to drill holes into the end of each piece of bracing using a 3/16" drill bit. These holes would allow me to screw the braces to the end caps.

The trick to drilling through metal is to use the slowest drill speed your drill has and apply as much downward pressure as you can muster. If you have access to some sort of lubricant it will help to keep your drill bit sharp and reduce heat. Or you can do what I do and just raw dog it, and then buy a drill bit sharpener later.

I drilled some quick pilot holes into the end caps using a 1/16th drill bit. I did this because when I screw the braces to the end caps I don’t want the end caps to split on me. Pilot holes help to reduce the amount of outward force a screw exerts as it's screwed into something. It’s a good practice to be in whenever you’re screwing into any wood, especially if it’s thin or you’re close to the edge.

I screwed some 3/4″ long #8 pan head screws through the braces and into the end caps which secured the whole thing together.

Step 9: Installing the Mounting Hardware

It took me a while to figure out exactly how I wanted to mount this project. Eventually, after some serious procrastination, I decided if I didn’t finish this project I’d be disappointing myself. And there’s no greater shame in life than disappointing yourself. I got in my truck and drove to the hardware store so that I could browse for some mounting solutions. I settled on a big heavy chain because I thought it looked cool. I also considered using aircraft wire/braided steel cables, but I didn’t feel that it was in keeping with the rest of the project. When I got back to the shop I marked out two spots, 1.5″ from the end of each brace, where I was going to mount the anchors that would connect the chains.

Using my old standby and a grinding wheel I carved away at the steel until I had a small flat patch at the peak of the top brace. Once I had a flat spot I was able to use a 5/16″ drill bit to drill a hole down through the top of the brace. If I had tried to do this without grinding the flat spot first, the drill bit would’ve just slid off of the brace.

I threaded two 5/16 eyebolts through the holes and attached a nut on the inside of the brace. To ensure that the nut never came loose I applied a generous amount of thread locker (Loctite) to the threads of the nut.

Step 10: Mounting Hardware Pt 2.

We know how the chains are going to mount to the light fixture, but how are they going to mount to the ceiling? Good question.

Most ceiling hung light fixtures mount to what are called octagon boxes (at least here in Canada they do) which is a standard household electrical junction box. When people move light fixtures or remove them they’re often left with exposed octagon boxes in their ceilings or walls which looks quite ugly, so hardware stores sell these blank white octagon box covers for a couple of bucks. It’s just a simple plate made to cover a vacant box, but they’re made of metal, and decently strong, so I decided to use one as my starting point. I drilled one hole in the center and 2 larger holes on the flanks.

In the center hole, I mounted another eye bolt (with thread locker again). I’ll connect the chains to the eye bolt and that will then carry the load of the light fixture.

In the other two holes, I mounted two clamping knockout conduit connectors for the wires. You use them when you have a wire passing through sheet metal. When they’re clamped down on the wires it prevents wires from moving and rubbing against any sharp edges and exposing their conductive cores. I’ll run the wires through the knockouts and then clamp them down in order to prevent my wires from fraying.

Step 11: Cutting the Chain

When I bought the chain at the hardware store it came in a single 5′ length. I wanted two separate chains that were equal lengths so I counted out two 20 ring long chains and cut them with the angle grinder….

Now look, I promise this is the last angle grinder shot. I’m sick of them too. But how else could I tell this story? I didn’t knaw through the chain with my teeth. I really wish I had a big set of bolt cutter I could’ve used instead but I don’t. I’m sorry.

Step 12: Connecting Everything

Using 4 chain links I connected my two lengths of the chain to either end of the fixture and then back to the center eyebolt in the cover plate. These chain links were pretty cool, they have a section in the middle the unscrews and allows you to loop them into chain links, then you screw the metal section shut and wallah! You have a complete chain.

With my chains sorted I then weaved my wires through the rings of the chain to keep it all organized and neat. Ideally, I would’ve come up with a more modular design because mounting this was kind of a pain in the ass, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Step 13: Painting the Metal

At this point, I had to go backwards a couple of steps and completely disassemble everything to get it ready to be painted.

I gave all of the metal braces a quick sand with some 80 grit sanding pads on my random orbital sander. After the sanding, I wiped them all down with a rag lightly doused in varsol. The varsol helps to remove any oil and metal dust left over from the sanding.

My original plan was just to paint the steel braces and call it a life. I looked at the end caps and felt they were too busy looking. With all the wires, the tombstones, and the bulbs there were just too many different shades of white going on. I decided to blackout as much of this project as I could to make it all look cleaner.

I spent a few minutes masking everything off with some blue painters tape, donned my respirator and then sprayed everything down with some flat black spray paint. Are the kids still calling this “murdering it out”? Well murder it out I did. In general, when I’m designing projects I like to minimize the number of different design elements. I find painting things all the same colour is a really easy way to make different materials appear as if they are all the same.

Hell, I even did the ends of the bulbs too. I figured if I was going to do, I might as well really go for it!
I let all of the paint dry overnight and then re-assembled everything the next day and got it ready to be installed.

Step 14: Installation at Home

Here you can see the original light fixture that I replaced. I hated that thing since the day I moved in. Not only is it ugly (my subjective opinion) but it uses these super hard to find bulbs that kick off a ton of heat, so they can’t be very energy efficient. I switched off the breaker that supplied electricity to the fixture and commenced taking it down with a giant smile on my face.

That smile quickly faded when it came time to install my new light fixture though. It isn’t as heavy as it looks, but it’s also not exactly light. Remember before how I was saying I wish I designed it in a more modular way? Ya, that would’ve been nice.

I had to wire up the fixture and then screw the cover plate onto the octagon box in the ceiling all while supporting the weight of the entire fixture within 12″ of the ceiling. Eventually, I came up with this super sophisticated setup. I balanced the fixture on two stools and that held it high enough in the air that I had enough slack in the chains and wires to hook everything up.

Step 15: Enjoying It

With the fixture installed, there was nothing left to do except to flip the light switch and bask in the new light.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this build. This was a really fun project to do and I'd love to do more lights in the future. I think maybe I'll tackle a sconce or a lamp next... hmmm I haven't quite decided.

If you enjoyed this build and want to see what I do next make sure you check out my YouTube (YouTube.com/ZacBuilds) and Instagram (Instagram.com/ZacBuilds/)! They also have my entire back catalog of projects too :)

If you have any questions or comments hit me with them down below in the comment section!

Step 16: Bonus Behind the Scenes

Have you ever tried to take photos of a light thats turned on before? It isn’t easy haha. The lights are so bright it overpowers everything else and forces the camera to underexpose the rest of the room. Not exactly ideal. So I kind of “faked” the lights being on by shining these two LED lights right into the fixture from a safe distance away and then cropping them out of the frame.

Not bad right? Would you have known if I didn’t tell you?