For our annual visit to Mac & Helen’s in 2012 we thought we’d try to make a chandelier. We wanted one that would fit with the style of our old house which has a certain combination of simple, basic, slightly rustic Georgian-Victorian with a beach shed!
The previous C19th owner was a stonemason and a metal worker, so there was many examples of simple chunky ironwork and tools around the house (see my home reno blog Domus Renovatio!). We’ve progressed this mixture with a basic and slightly industrial feel with stainless steel and iron in the kitchen and utility rooms, using warehouse lights, led-upgraded kero lamps, and added a mixture of simple chandeliers around the older part of the house. So there’s a theme but a variance – a different light in every room!
However we had one missing. We needed a chandelier for our dining room which already features Mac’s iron and wood furniture, so we were thinking along those lines. We wondered about something steampunk (without going too thematic).
When we explained the concept of steampunk to Mac he went one better. Junkpunk!
Over the years he has collected a huge array of materials from various places including a 1920’s car found in the bush near his house. It’s pretty much rusted and decayed, but a few components were salvageable, e.g. some lovely big iron cogs! As we played around with the library of rust, a design started to form in Mac’s mind…
- Pondering the design over a glass of wine, the night before we start.
- The supermarket of scrap.
- Trying to visualise a cog-based design over breakfast.
- Enter the workshop!
- Sort out the usual spiders…
- The beautiful bandsaw!
- The endless sanding belt.
- The gigantic de-dustifer.
- Annealing the copper tube
- Trying out using rope to prevent kinking. It didn’t work, so we used sand.
- Full of sand and plugged
- Emptying out the sand
- Buffing up the rust.
- Making the brass cups.
- Rough cut brass cup
- Lathing the brass cups
- Lathing the brass cups
- Lathing the brass cups
- Somehow we cupped it, but I’ve forgotten how!
- Protecting the brass.
- Bend the brass
- Make saddles to hold the copper pipes
- Nicen the saddles.
- Punch the saddle bolt holes
- Drill the saddle bolt holes
- Tap the holes
- Fit the saddles
- The jigsaw
- Pause for thought
- Soldering the pipes
- The pipes will hang from this
- Clean up the solder with acid
- More acid
- More buffing
- Cleanup a brass component for the hanger with hydrochloric acid.
- More buffing
- Putting together the hanger
- I think that’s it!
- Making some washers with punches
- Trying to assemble the puzzle – I needed four arms!
- The hang test!
- Back home – in place.
- Lights!
- Detail of the copper wire binding the central disk
- Detail of the brass saddles.
- We founds some great faux-vintage filament bulbs.