Introduction: An Awesome Wooden Lamp

Hello Everyone!

In this Instructable I'm going to show you how to build your own rough wooden chandelier for a country house.

When I faced a problem of room lightning in my new house, I spent weeks trying to find both functional and stylish solution. However, there was none that could work for me. So, a thought come to my mind: "Why not to build it myself?" And I made it.

The first thing I started with was design. The concept was to make a chandelier with a big enough lightning area and adjustable lightning direction. For some reason I decided to make it triangular shaped (even though you can choose any other).

So, in order to build one, you will need following materials and gear:
(All of the measurements done in this post will use the metric system)

Materials:

 

  • Spruce boards -3 pcs. (4.5 meters in total)
  • Lamps - 6 pcs.
  • Light bulbs - 6 pcs.
  • Wires - 4 m.
  • Rope - 2,5 m.
  • Decorative chain - 1m.
  • Connectors
  • Insulating tape
  • Terminal block
  • Screws
  • Fastening hooks

 

Instruments:

 

  • Electrodrill
  • Electrofret
  • Electric Plane
  • Sander [It is electric too, btw :)]
  • Hot air gun
  • Screwdriver, knife, pliers, compass, test light bulb

 

Let's start!

Step 1: Preparations

Shape the wooden boards with an electric plane.

Step 2: Plan Your Future Actions

Take a look at what you have to understand what you want to get eventually.

Step 3: Changing the Form of the Boards

Cut the wave-shape curves using Electrofret.

Step 4: Bulb Holes

Mark places for the lights, make some auxiliary holes with a drill, and then cut them out with a fret.

Step 5: Woodwork

There are dozens of ways to achieve the result I want such as painting or varnishing. Still, I decided to use "curing" (or, simply, burning out). That will help me to get the best possible look of the wood fiber and create a unique oldish harsh design. So, I used a hot air gun that makes 660 Celsius of heat. You can use gas burner as well.

Step 6: Putting Together Parts

Now, let's put together parts of our product with a rope. Just to make sure that it won't collapse some day, I added a couple of screws from the inner side.

Step 7: Intermediate Result

This is what you should get so far.

Step 8: Wiring

And now It's time for wiring! We still have 6 lamp to be connected in groups and 3 wires(2 lead and a null) to be connected to gang switch. I used the cheapest and the safest technique to make all of this work together. Two wires come out of each lamp and then are gathered into 3 separate groups(3L+3L+6N). Wires from each group are cleaned from isolation, twisted together and isolated again to make 3 main wires.

It would be a bad idea to twist gang switch wires with these 3 main wires as switch wires are made of aluminum and main wires are made of cooper. Twisting them together will create a huge EMF (Electromotive force). So I used clips to connect them.

Step 9: Hang It!

Screw three hooks into the ceiling to hook the chandelier. Also add three screws into the chandelier itself to connect the decorative chain.

Step 10: Connecting the Wires

And the last step: connect all the wires together (don't forget to make sure which ones are N's and L's). Then hide all of the stuff into the terminal block.

Step 11: That's It!

Ta-da! At this point you should get that awesome, advertised in my title, wooden lamp