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White Oak and Red Zebra Wood |
In the first iteration I found my strategy for making a clean hub for the legs and light hardware to be flawed. That left a couple of dings in the edge of the walnut hub. Not critical to the function of the light, but visible scars showing none the less. To verify that I could make one with no machine made flaws of course I had to make another. Standing in the dark.
The hub is made from white oak. I had a long narrow length of white oak glued up from two strips. 1.25" x 1.25" square and 21" long. I cut it into 4 sections each 5" long, then glued them together side by side to make a block 5" x 5" x 1.25" thick. The new hub was cut from that block. No flaws. First step was to drill a 1/4" hole through the center. The block was then impaled on a 1/4" dowel pin. That allowed easy alignment when it was flipped over to cut the back side. Three sockets were pocket cut for the legs. The center hole was drilled out larger, then tapped for the light hardware post. All machining processes done and successful.
Legs were still needed, so a trip to my garage to find material for the legs brought back some red zebra wood strips, and an unknown strip of wood similar in color to make legs from. There was not quite enough to make three legs from the red zebra wood, so an ancient strip of what may be either Honduras mahogany or rose wood was added to the composition of one leg.
The back leg was done in two halves. A slot for the power cord to run through was cut on the inside face of each half. Next came cutting notched tenons on the top of the leg dowels. Power Cord Through One Leg
The notched tenons allowed easy orientation of the legs to cut the bottom end so they would be flat on the floor. Once cut all that was left was to sand the legs smooth and apply some finish, then assemble the light.
This is likely the last of this design. It has spurred variations that may show up should I pursue them. A fun, quick project to make requiring a small amount of wood and a few tricks that made the parts easy to make accurately.
Comments encouraged!
4D