I’ve wanted to make these lamps with glass jars, like those used for jam, for a long time. One, two, … a hundred of them to decorate the garden on summer nights (<- YouTube Video). Although I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave them out all night, especially here in Galicia, where it almost always dews at night, whether it’s summer or not. It’s best to store them, and if we forget them outside and find them wet, we should unplug the plug inside the house before touching them. Then dry the lamp holders with a hairdryer. Anyway, let’s first see how to make a lamp with a glass jar, and then I’ll worry about whether I dare to take them out to the garden or not.
Making a lamp with a glass jar was easier than I thought since the lids of the glass jars are easily cut with a fret saw.
To make these lamps with glass jars, the most difficult part was finding a narrow lamp holder with a ring or nut to hold a lamp plate. Looking at the photo of the lamp holder, you’ll surely understand the type of lamp holder I mean. After visiting several hardware stores, I realized that a lamp store would surely have them. And they did. You might think about using a regular lamp holder, but this one gives me more security as there’s less chance of any wire coming into contact with the metal lid of the jar.
The large lamp holder has one of those pieces inside that protects the wire from being pulled, similar to what plugs have to protect them from people like me who have the bad habit of pulling the wire instead of holding the plug to unplug it. The small one doesn’t have this, and although it won’t be pulled much, we will see that the cable sheath slowly moves up, exposing the two wires inside. It’s better to cover the area where the wire enters the lamp holder with some electrical tape of the same color as the cable, making it look nicer and more protected.
When choosing a bulb for our glass jar lamps, you’ve probably noticed that the bulbs give off different colored light.
Energy-saving bulbs have a label that tells us their wattage in watts (W), lumens (luminous flux), and color temperature in degrees Kelvin. If we want the bulbs we buy to give off the same light (the same luminous flux), we’ll make sure they have the same lumens, and if we want the light to be the same color, we’ll look for the same color temperature. In this case, one gives off a whiter light (6400K) and the other a more yellow light (2700K).
One of the problems with making a lamp with a glass jar is that the bulb can get too hot, so I left the bulbs on for a while to see if they got hotter than the energy-saving bulbs I have in the garage lights without covers. And I think they do get a bit hotter.
I don’t think making a lamp with a glass jar is good for the bulb’s lifespan, so it’s better to use the lowest wattage bulbs we can find without worrying about them having low lumens, as they are just to create some ambiance. As soon as I can, I’ll replace them with LED bulbs, which surely get much less hot than these. Meanwhile, I might make some holes in the jar lids to see if it helps ventilate them a bit. I don’t know, but I’m sure that will only result in the jars filling up with flies and mosquitoes.