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Chase challenged me to make a lamp in the shape of a guy curling. The client for his current project used to be an olympic curler, and he thought it would be a fun gift.
If you know me even a little, you know that I woud never back down from a challenge, so I googled "curling" and scrolled until I found a good picture of a guy right after he released the stone, and I started to sketch.
Once I realized that the sharp angles at his hip and knee could be done with these Y pipe pieces I'd seen a couple times, I was hooked on the concept. I think this might be my favorite part; figuring out what parts are required to accomplish my vision. [By the way, shout out to getpvf.com for having the Y pipe I needed, they aren't easy to find.]
After receiving all the parts, I was super excited to construct my curling man and see if it worked out in reality the way it worked in my imagination. It was a beautiful day out, so I put the lid on our fire table, covered it in a towel, and went to work.
The first try looked great, but I had made his hips/legs a single dimension, so he could not stand up on his own (at least, not much longer than a quick picture or two). Additionally, I intended to put him on a base, and there was no part of him I could attach to anything. With him also falling down, solidly attaching him would be vital.
I was actually waiting for a couple more pieces, so I had to come back to the project later.
When I returned to the task, it was time to wire him up. The light bulb was going to be his face. I was planning on using a tossed-aside light socket from a previous project (just the guts, only the necessities), because his head pipe was pretty small compared to most light sockets. The socket had a knob on the side to turn it on and off, but I didn't need that, so I took it off. However, there was still a little stub left poking out, and the socket wouldn't fit. What to do...
I had recently purchased a Dremel rotary tool, which a friend had mentioned could cut metal (a need I worked around on an earlier project). I hadn't actually [successfully] used it yet, and what better time than now? Did I mention, I've never done anything like this before? Most things related to these lamps are firsts for me. [For all the loved ones reading, don't worry, I took proper precautions - I wore gloves, eye protection, and long sleeves. And I'm fine!] In this case, cutting metal with a disc spinning at thousands of rotations per minute (5,000 to 35,000!!!!) makes SPARKS! Yikes!!!
I didn't know that was going to happen so I got a little scared off, but I gathered my nerves and got back to it. Only one spark hit me in the face! #winning. No damage done. Of course I find that I didn't quite cut the knob short enough, so I had to whip out my fancy new metal cutting rotary tool parts and grind it down a bit. Finally, the socket fit in the lamp man's head, and I wired up the lamp. I took it out to the kitchen counter to check it out for the first time. Got him [mostly] standing up, and plugged him in.
Nothing.
No light. WHAT!? This has happened before with more complex wiring jobs where a wire nut falls off or something, but this guy just had a wire leading right down his neck and out his foot, there was no place for it to go wrong! I fiddled for a WHILE. Maybe I put the neutral wire where the hot goes? Switched them. Nothing. Wait, it was correct the other way. Switched them back. Nothing. Probably took a break and had a beer while I scratched my head for a while.
Then, somehow it came to me. The switch I removed! It must be switched OFF! So obvious and yet so subtle. At this point though, I have barely a nub of switch remaining; turns out it was lucky that the rotary tool scared me and made me cut too far away from the socket edge. I went in with a pair of needlenosed pliers and managed to turn the tiny nub one click. SUCCESS!
I was still waiting for some parts, so I stopped there.
When all my parts were in, I was ready to finish curling man up. While waiting for the parts I had mulled over how I would attach him to a base and make him stay upright. I had an epiphany that his hips didn't have to be a Y pipe, I just needed an elbow there, then he'd be able to plant his foot flat AND be able to stand up better.
I had a bit more wiring to do, because I had the idea during the design phase that it would be super cute if his outreached hand could turn the lamp on and off. I found the right kind of switch on Etsy (you really can find ANYTHING on the internet) and wired it in to the circuit (now it wasn't as basic of a wiring job as before). After some bumps in the road, I got him wired, with switch hand, and a dimmer on the cord (an absolute must; you will not find any of my lamps lacking a dimmer). I found a perfect piece of marble from the bunch Chase had rescued from the dumpster at work, already the right size! He still didn't have the best balance, so I put in a little pipe prop until I could attach him to his marble.
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to attach him; the marble piece that was "perfect" was pretty thin. A friend suggested a bolt and nut, which after the fact sounded obvious, but up to that point I'd been using cement screws to attach to the marble pieces so I was more in the screw-in mindset.
Took my sweet time getting to Home Depot, but when I did I found the perfect hardware (when does that every actually happen, amiright?).
The big task was still ahead of me though; I had to make holes in marble. I'd made two lamps previously with marble for bases, but Chase took those to work and got someone with the right tools to cut them to shape and drill the holes I needed. The job he had been working at the time was wrapping up and I doubted there'd still be the right tools there, so it was up to me!
I'd actually drilled into stone before, in my condo in Virgina, when I put up shelves in the shower. I got the right drill bit and everything. Of course I didn't keep the drill bit, so I had to buy a new set, but luckily I was already at Home Depot!
The hole drilling went shockingly smoothly, though I had forgotten how long it takes, and how your trigger finger on the drill gets tired, you switch to the middle and IT gets tired, you switch to left... you get it.
I tested out my hardware and it worked!! Bolts were long enough. Pretty nut-head-things fit on top. Though they were shiny shiny stainless steel, so I took one to my little cardboard-box-painting-studio outside and gave one a little spritz to see if it would work. The match was quite good, much better than shiny silver!
I had to wait for the spray paint on the nuts to dry, and I fixed his switch-hand because I wasn't happy with how it looked (damn my perfectionism), so the glue on the switch-hand had to dry as well. Once both of those things were dried he was ready for his (hopefully) final test. I took him to the kitchen, plugged him in, and took a video walk-around of him and demo of his hand turning on and off the bulb. Beautiful!
When Chase brought the lamp to give to his client, it was a big hit!! BUT... the light didn't turn on. Sigh. Of all the things to not work on a man lamp, the LAMP part is pretty crucial! He brought it back for me to fix. It seemed likely that the wire attachments to the light socket had come undone because the socket twisted a little in its holder when trying to screw in and out the bulb. Since everything was all wired up nice and clean, it was a challenge to repair the socket connection at his head (no room!). I ended up yanking the socket out (destroying it in the process), and I had to wait for an Amazon order to arrive with more sockets since I had just run out.
A couple days later, the new sockets arrived and I was ready to go. The wires that connected to the previous socket were too short to attach to a new socket with the man fully assembled (I usually work from the bulb downwards when I wire a lamp so there's always easy access to the wires as I go), so I added in an extra bit of wire to make some room. That little bit of wire attached to the socket, the socket went into his head, and the bit of wire stuck out the neck. Now I just had to join the wires at the neck. I'm picturing spinal surgery on Grey's Anatomy or something the way I have him laid out with his neck wires disconnected, hahaha.
Unfortunately, the little bit of extra wire I used wasn't long enough! AHH!! I usually use wire nuts to connect wires inside the lamps, but the wires need to be laying parallel to each other and twisted together, and I didn't have space for that. Instead of re-doing the socket AGAIN, I decided I was going to solder it.
There was an extra benefit to the soldering idea; it made it even more unlikely that the wires would come detached again. At this point, though, it's maybe 10:30pm and I should have gone to bed. Instead I'm starting a whole different phase of work on this guy!
The first time I soldered when I began my foray into making pipe lamps, I was super afraid I didn't know what I was doing and would fail, but together with YouTube, that experience went really great, and I confidently did it again when I made my dad's birthday lamp. This would be time number three, and by now it seemed like a breeze!!
It was still a little tight; I felt even more like I was performing man-lamp spinal surgery, but it went well. The picture is halfway done, the upper wire was attached, the lower wire was ready to go. After soldering them both, I covered them in electrical tape and it was time to re-assemble and test! I was maybe a TAD overconfident that the wiring was right, considering I didn't even test it before I made the wire connection permanent (well, relatively).
It all turned out OK though, the re-assembled lamp worked! PHEW!!
Fast forward to Chase bringing it back to work... he texts me that it's still not working.
No!!!
Then I remember he might not have turned the hand switch, and only tried the dimmer on the cord. He had left the client's house by that point, and left the man-lamp there, but he hadn't gotten far, so he turned around and went back to try the hand switch. I was so sure that was the issue. But he texted me again, still not working! Now I'm just baffled. It worked the previous night. The wiring job was SOLID this time. What could be wrong??
Turns out the guys who installed the smart-home stuff in the house had briefly turned off the power to fix some wiring. When they turned it back on, thank goodness, curling man's bulb turned on. YES!!!
Here he is, powered-on successfully at the client's home!
Here he is, powered-on successfully at the client's home!
PHEW.
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