Well, after months weeks days hours of hard work, I have finally (finally!) finished a project - turning an empty bottle of Gulden Draak beer into a lamp! As I am not one to really plan these sorts of things in advance, I have no pictures but of the final product.
This was a very easy project whose biggest difficulty lay in drilling the hole needed to run the wires into the base of the lamp.
While the drilling itself was a slow process, requiring a steady and patient hand, it was actually trying to find a drillbit for glass that gave me fits. For once Lowes let me down, and I ended up finding one in Home Depot of all places.
While there I also picked up the socket, switch, threaded steel nipple, shade, and bulb. All for about $12. The cord I salvaged from something that didn't need it anymore (I can't remember what it was, and old humidifier maybe?), and the cork came from a bag of corks a roommate had on hand for one of her projects (a cork board made from corks; she didn't want the artificial ones, so I took them).
In truth, I am not entirely pleased with the result. The lamp shade is too short; the cork used to anchor the socket looks like crap; and the socket itself is too exposed. Speaking of exposure, I had to use electrician's tape to cover the exposed terminals as 120V is not something that any sane person really wants to touch. While my ex-boss may maintain that it merely tickles, I say it bloody well hurts!
These are minor problems, though, and will be rectified in future iterations of this project. Lampshades will be purchased from someplace with a decent selection, and not Home Despot; and I will either find a way to neatly trim the corks down, or go with something more along the lines of a rubber stopper used in laboratories. As for the exposed wires on the socket, I probably should get a cup in which to place it. This would not only serve to protect the wires, but would also look much better.
But all that is for next time. For now, i have video games to play!
