And now it was time for the part I usually like the least, painting the wood of the lamp. And with the parts painted I can glue the halves together with the lampshade in between, drill the holes for the screws, install the electrical part and finally assemble and turn the lamp on.
Antes de pintar la lámpara led (<-Puedes encontrar ahí cómo hacer la lámpara paso a paso) tengo que lijar bien todas las partes de madera con una lija fina, sin olvidarme de ningún rincón. Con un taco de lija aún más fina di un lijado final y limpié bien el polvo de todas las piezas. Puse unos pequeños clavos sin cabeza en varios tacos de madera y puse sobre ellos las superficies de madera que no necesitaba pintar. Así con las piezas elevadas puedo pintar la lámpara y barnizar sin miedo a que la pintura se quede pegada al papel de periódico que pongo debajo para proteger la mesa de trabajo.
Don’t miss the video summary in English on “How to make a led lamp in the shape of a tree“. With links to all articles on this making.
Normally, I would give a coat of primer, but I don’t have a suitable one for the synthetic paint I have (an old can of green paint I had at the bottom of a cabinet in the workshop), so I gave a coat of paint, stretching it well, and when it was dry I gave a soft sanding with the fine sandpaper foam block. I went over all the paint with my fingers to make sure there were no rough spots left not sanded, cleaned up the dust and gave it a second coat of green paint. And to apply the stain varnish the procedure was the same. If the paint and the stain varnish are well stretched and sanded smooth between coats, the difference in color and feel between the first coat and the second is enormous.
Con la pintura ya seca puse cada mitad de la pantalla de la lámpara en su correspondiente mitad del árbol, metiendo un par de grapas en la base de cada pantalla para asegurarme de que no quedarían elevadas sobre el tronco. Y para así poder sellar fácilmente el hueco por el que pasa la bombilla led con unas capas de papel higiénico pegadas con la mezcla de cola y agua. Si no se sella ese hueco tendremos una luz más brillante que sale por él y afeará la lámpara.
Para pegar ambas mitades aplico un fino cordón de cola de carpintero en el borde de madera sin pintar, y también en el borde de ambas pantallas. Con un pincel pequeño estiro bien la cola, limpiando el exceso con un trozo de papel. Pongo una mitad encima de la otra y las aprieto con los sargentos de carpintero baratos, con cuidado de alinear bien ambas piezas e intentando proteger la pintura con unos trozos de fieltro.
The lamp holder is screwed into a piece of hollow threaded rod which is also screwed into the hole made for this purpose in the base of the wood lamp. Now all I had to do was to pass the electrical cable through the side hole, lead it into the lamp holder and make the electrical connections.
I drilled a couple of pilot holes, drilled from the bottom of the base to the trunk of the tree, to join both parts with screws. And I also drilled a couple of recesses to accommodate the head of the screws and prevent them from protruding from the bottom with the danger of scratching the table on which the led lamp might be placed.
And while I was at it, I put some pieces of self-adhesive felt under the wooden base. The same felt I had used to try to protect the paint when I used the clamps (and I confess that they left a very slight roughness in the paint, although without the felt the damage would have been much greater).
And finally, a safety note: I use an LED bulb with only 1 watt of power. I checked that it does not get hot at all after a long time on. An incandescent bulb or even energy-saving bulbs, no matter how powerful they are, generate heat, so being in this lamp so close to the paper of the lampshade, it could burn and even catch fire.
