Helping Hands

(SoCI: I'll be at Valley View through the last of July. Will have limited internet access to do things like check on/reply here, Facebook and my newer email address.)

Since I've been bragging to everyone not JF for the last month about how awesome I am for making these, and since this blog has a specific weekly post dedicated to "Stuff I Maked," I now present: JF's Birthday Present. In the spirit of this blog's original conception, I present it in the form of a lab report.

Hypothesis: I am a cool girlfriend.

Research: I got the idea watching Iron Man with him when he kept drooling over the super-high-tech butler helping hands. I got the idea to use lamps when I gave him a broken one of mine to use for parts and he mentioned using it to make some helping hands.

Materials: Secondhand lamps, needlenose pliers, clear nail polish, paintbrush, the internet, stickers, clamps, a flexy light, wire and/or tigertail, scrapbooking tweezers, screwdriver, magnifying glass from headset & plastic holding piece, diamond grinder wheel, magnet with hole, vice grip, dad (for helping)

Procedure: I got some secondhand lamps at Savers, and stripped everything but the base and flexy parts. On one, I unscrewed the bottom of the base, removed the knobs (hint: if you leave the whole clicky on-off knob apparatus intact, it's really fun to play with and annoy people) and threaded tigertail through the magnet, through the switch hole, through another hole, and screwed the base back on. There were two fabric-coated wires poking out of where I took the lamp part off. I trimmed the fabric off (so nothing's flammable), melted a third piece of wire to stick in, and crimped clamps to all three wires. On the other, I took a magnifying part from a headset thing, stripped off the plastic, used another plastic piece to attach it into the flexy part (had to use the grinder to get this plastic piece the right shape). Then I took the little flexy light and wired it to the section of the lamp where the straight metal ends and the flexy part begins.  I found some cool quotes about building/creating/making stuff, and I put them around the bases of the two ex-lamps in letter stickers, painting over them with clear nail polish.

Observations/Data:

Here's the one with the magnifying glass and the attached little flexy light. The light is attached with lime green wire, which is because it matches the stickers I used and also because Bro lost my copper and silver wire. The card attached to it (with lime green ribbon, I might add) has the entire quote I put around the bottom, since only the abridged version would fit.

Here's the quote around the bottom. This one by Alice Walker says "Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful."

A close-up of the magnifying glass attached with the plastic piece and the little flexy light. The paper I used for the cards is paisley because JF likes paisley. The little cards match the big birthday card I made and the tissue paper I used to wrap them in.

This is the other one. The little knob in the middle is part of the lamp base that I screwed back down over the tigertail running through the magnet, to hold it down. The magnet is where the on-off knob used to be.

A close-up of the three clamps. They are on rubber-coated wires that are a few inches long. The wire is posable, but a little less easy to keep in a set position than the flexy lamp arms or the flexy light.

The magnet and the quote. This one is by Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus and says "When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... for such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth."

Conclusion: I think he liked it.

Things I Would Change: The first one doesn't flex all the way; something I didn't think to check on when buying the lamps. It's rigid metal until about halfway up. Also, the wire setup I used to attach the flexy light could definitely use some work (I won't be surprised if the first thing JF uses these to do is improve on that) but I tried a couple different things and this was the best I came up with. Tigertail plus beading crimps were a flop, and there was no way to superglue it while leaving easy access to the battery compartment. I also wish the wire the crimps are on was a little more posable.