My Time Plan

Just a simple gantt chart time plan, allocating a certain amount of time for different parts of the lamp prototype construction. 

Casting The Perfect Concrete Bolt

Firstly I managed to get hold of a large hexagonal nut, roughly 30mm in diameter. I filled the centre of the nut with car bog and sanded it flush when it was dry. 

I then placed the nut, on the bed of a vacuum former and formed it around a HIPS sheet (High Impact Polycarbonate. This technique turned out better than I thought, making a perfect mould to cast a concrete bolt.

I experimented with just a basic cement and sand mix, in both wet, medium and dry consistencies to see what results I would get. Using petroleum jelly as a mould release. 

 However, the results were not as I expected. the finish on the bolts were very bubbly and inconstant throughout all concrete tests. 

After finding an extremely low grit concrete, Used for bathroom floors etc, The results were much better.  

These 3 bolts I am saving for the final piece, because they are free off of bubbles and imperfections. However, the reason these turned out the best was the combination of both the new concrete mix at a wet constancy and not using a mould release. Luckily the mould itself didn't break however, after the third cast a crack did appear. 

First Mock-up Using Materials

 Mould for the base, using a metal tin for a nice surface finish.

 A lazy susan mechanism will be sandwiched between two pieces of concrete to create the swivelling base.

Once screwed together the base swivels freely, however, it swivels too much due to the weight of the concrete building up momentum. Possibly add magnets to ease the freeness of the swivel.

I also placed pins in the base in which the lamp can slot into,

Small holes drilled into the two base pieces of the lamp. By using epoxy on the metal pins and in the holes, this should provide ample support for the lamp.

Then it was just a matter of assembling the the lamp as all my pieces of wood were pre laser cut. 

For the light source I picked up and LED light pack from Ikea and ran the chords through the lamp itself.