Indoors,  Workshop

Lamp Base from Plywood

Last year we made a round stacked plywood lamp base and it turned out awesome. I’ve been thinking about it lately and decided we really needed two of them.

DIY plywood lamp base, build it yourself, made in Nova Scotia
Round plywood lamp base.

We tossed around ideas for the shape and thought about building the other base oval. After some more thought we settled on square. I wanted them to be made of the same material but looking different from each other.

Once in the workshop with a fire in the wood stove, Jim set about cutting the squares on the table saw. We had measured the bottom of the round lamp and decided on 6 1/2 inches for the squares.

square lamp,plywood
This is his happy face.

We counted the layers on the round lamp and then we cut out 12 squares plus 2 smaller ones for the top.

square lamp,plywood
Pieces all cut.

We stacked them all up and I took them into the house to see how it looked with the lamp shade. Its a good thing too because after seeing it with the shade and next to the round base I decided it was way too big.

Back to the workshop to break the news to Jim that all of the squares needed to be trimmed. We decided to take an inch of two of the sides. So glad we did.

square lamp,plywood
Back to the table saw.

For the top piece we set the table saw to a 45 degree angle and trimmed all four sides.

square lamp,plywood
Angle cut.

Here is how it looked so far.

square lamp,plywood
Pretty.

After finding the center of each square…

square lamp,plywood
Doing my part.

It was time to drill a hole in each one for the wire to go through.

square lamp,plywood
Making me work for this lamp.

Each square was glued and then nailed together.

square lamp,plywood
Time for glue
square lamp,plywood
Watch your fingers.

Now for the fun part, depending on who you ask.

square lamp,plywood
Sanding…
square lamp,plywood
…sanding…
square lamp,plywood
…still sanding.

Actually it didn’t take all that long. Again, depending on who you ask.

We placed the two smaller blocks on top with glue and nails after we threaded the wire through the whole base.

square lamp,plywood
Wiring up the lamp

And that folks is how you make your own lamps using plywood.

square lamp,plywood
Both lamps together.
square lamp,plywood
Final resting place.

If you make a plywood base lamp, be sure to show us.

Later

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