Just before the stay at home order was issued I picked up a load of scrap wood from my friend Bruce. He had been remodeling his house for an unusually long time, and had things he had completely forgotten about.
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Mixed in with the old door, two by fours and solid two by six floor decking were a few 4×8 joists. You find a lot of this kind of scrap – yes it’s a hefty piece of wood, but it’s too small to use as a joist and a little too big to really do anything with other than maybe put your car up on it in the yard.
I decided to see if I could make a lamp base out of it, but there are a couple challenges. First off, to cut a 4×8 you either need bigger milling equipment than a table saw from The Home Depot or you need to be really precise cutting it from both sides. I went the “really precise” route as I’m not in any position to drop a grand buying a band saw.
This gets to that old friend math again; the guard on the skillsaw is one inch from the blade, so if I want run that along a guide (to keep my hand straight and steady) my guide needs to be five inches from the edge. I took a little piece of wood (a scrap leftover from milling scraps) and with the finish nailer, I tacked it into place.
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That got me a little over halfway through the block of wood. My next step was to do exactly the same thing from the other side, and I mean exactly. The blade cut needs to meet perfectly to create a smooth surface. Which, naturally, it wasn’t exactly exact, but it was close enough for a little sanding to even it up.
The last bit is to get a hole through the length of the block without a drill press. This, again, takes a bit of measuring and a steady hand. Like the Chunnel, the boring bit has to meet up in the middle, which isn’t that hard, as long as you measure right.
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One more hole in the side so the power cord has a place to come out, and, then it’s no longer a block on the way to the dump, but instead a cool, rugged looking lamp base.
It was a lot of fun putting this one together, and I’m happy to say it was the first lamp that sold when I set up the commerce bit on the website. I’m looking forward to making more!