Unique and Easy to Make Handmade Wooden Sticks Pendant Lamp

Greeting Makers,

After making dozens of lamp or lights related projects, here I am again with a new & unique lamp making project. Last year during Diwali I made several of these lamps for sale in a local handicraft fair but never got time to publish them as instructables, guess I was too busy.

Today my dear fellows, I have finally gathered everything and published the lamp making process as this instructable.

You may probably be thinking that the design of the lamp is super complex (Even after reading the tile :D ), but I promise you that this lamp is super easy to create.

Even if you do not have any experience in woodworking, trust me if you want to make this lamp, you will be able to make it.

The design philosophy of this lamp is SIMPLE :) and totally Handmade :)

Lets light up this world :)

To make this beautiful lamp you would need some very basic stuff:

Materials

1. Wooden Sticks (Not Dowels) . These sticks are 11mm thick (uniformly square)approximately. Each stick should be of 10 inch in size and you would need around 52 such sticks. You can get them from hardware or wood material store, they usually come in long sizes so either you spend some time cutting them to 10" or get them cut at your local wood workshop. They are already quite smooth so I did not sand them.
2. Wood Glue
3. A small piece of plywood or MDF wood around 8-10mm thick and size 4"x4" (This size may vary depending on how you build your lamp so you might have to cut to adjust the size). We will use this piece as a cover for the lamp.
4. Electrical Wire.
5. Some Earth or Ground Wire around 2 Feet, choose a thick one so that it can retain its shape when the lamp is hung.
6. PU Spray or Liquid
7. 320 grit Sand Paper (Not shown in pictures)
8. Bulb holder (one that can be screwed on flat surfaces like wood) (see last picture)

Tools

1. Small hand saw (You may only need it if you cut the sticks by yourself or you may have to adjust the plywood piece)
2. Small screwdriver
3. Standard plier
4. Drill with 8mm wooden bit.
5. Measuring tape.

Now that our material and apparatus required is in place, lets have some fun making this unique lamp.

The design of this lamp evolved by chance. I was collecting and organizing some leftover wooden sticks which were used for some door repairing work at home. I was kind of intrigued by having so many sticks and started playing around just to form some shape and as always the first idea that sparked in my mind that it could be a great design for guess what...a lamp :)

I formed a simple square shape by placing 2 horizontal sticks above two vertical sticks (See picture above) leaving about 0.25" of space to form a frame with corners Then I placed two more vertical sticks on top but this time instead of placing exactly above the sticks below, I moved the sticks a bit inside (as marked by yellow arrows in the picture above), then I placed two horizontal sticks above but moved it a bit inside and so on...

Now if you look at the picture above, you will notice that it will begin to form a pyramid kind of shape and a very unique design that's usually found in Japanese/Buddhist culture based architectures.

Isn't it simple? just like some stacking game in your childhood. Time for some action fellas :)

P.S : Please forgive me if my language is over simplified, I am still learning the wood working vocabulary :)

Building this lamp is so easy that I have made 5 lamps in a day plus it is so much fun. See the images above and follow:

1. Arrange the sticks as shown in the first picture above and glue them together. The only thing to be careful about here is to make sure that the glue is applied neatly or it may ruin the aesthetics of the lamp.
2. Place some heavy object like a book and wait for 10 minutes for the glue to form a bond. This is important because the foundational frame is the basis of the entire design as you stack the sticks.
3. Once the foundational frame is strong, lets begin stacking & gluing the sticks in horizontal & vertical positions alternatively and make sure that each time the stick is glued a bit inside of the square (See the third picture above).
   1. Note: Depending on the type of wood glue you may or may not have to wait for a min or so in between stacking the sticks for the glue to form a bond.
4. Given the length of the sticks (10") and thickness as 11mm, after stacking all the 52 sticks it would leave a gap or 4"x4" on top approximately.
5. Place some heavy flat object like a book or stone tile (I placed a broken stone tile) on top, this will help in strengthening the bond.

Leave the arrangement to dry completely for 2-4 hours (This time may vary depending on instructions on the wood glue) .

Had fun? Good. Lets make some lighting arrangements while the lamp is getting dried.

Using the measurement tape measure the top of the lamp, mine came out as 4"x4" (see first picture above) . You might have to cut the plywood piece to adjust to size.

I have sanded the rough edges of the plywood. See image above and follow:

1. Drill a hole in the center of the plywood using the 8mm bit.
2. Drill two more holes close to two opposite corners as shown in the 2nd picture above.
3. Now pass the electrical wire through the center hole and connect it to the bulb holder.
4. Screw the bulb holder onto the plywood (see pictures above) using a screw driver, the screws are usually supplied with the holder.

At this point I would recommend that you attach a bulb to the holder and try to light it up to check if the connections are working fine.

Now that the bulb holder is ready , lets attach some hanging mechanism to it.

I have made a simple hanging mechanism but it is strong. You may get creative here and try something else. I used the ground wire to make a hanging mechanism. See the images and follow:

To make the hanger

1. Insert the ground wire from above the top of cover into the two holes.
2. Using the plier, twist the wire and form a knot so that the wire is secured inside holes.
3. You should see a wire arch on top of cover.
4. Now grab a cylindrical object or pipe like pvc or metal pipe. Hold the plywood and pull the wire from the middle using the pipe, press the wire around the object to form a ring, use plier if wire is too hard to bend.
5. Now remove the cylindrical object and your lamp hanger is ready.

Time to glue the cover to lamp

1. Apply glue on the top most sticks and place the cover on it.
2. If you have some sort of clamps or large binder clips, clip the cover with the stick for a stronger bond.

The design of this lamp is very unique therefore I had tried to use all sorts of lighting sources to see which works the best and it turns out that the lamp has a beautiful unique look with each light source.

See the picture above, from left to right.

1. Red colored LED bulb, suitable if you want some dim ambience effect.
2. Yellow colored LED bulb suitable when you need not to bright but some light.
3. Incandescent bulb to fill the room with the reflection of design. Very much suitable for your patio or under the terrace pergola.
4. Warm white CFL if you need more light.

My personal choice would be incandescent bulb as it brightens the space and reflect the design in beautiful shadows.

Thank you for your time to read this ible. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did while making it. Please do share your thoughts, feedback and suggestions in the comments below.

If you choose to make it, please use the "I made it" button to post a picture.

Hope you will like it and Vote it (it seems to appear in a few contests luckily) (The voting button is on top right of this page and sometimes appears late :D )

You are awesome.

Stay Tuned.