Crafting the Sconce

The Process

While at SWAP, I was looking for anything made of solid wood, knowing that I wanted to make a wall-mounted light fixture, called a sconce. I came upon a set of drawers removed from an old lab desk. After taking the fixture apart at the SWAP in order to fit it in my car, I brought the pieces to the woodshop. After taking the old finish off, I dimensioned the wood, and cut the long pieces of wood into thin strips. I took the strips home, and set to work gluing.

It takes 30 minutes for the wood glue to cure in the clamps, and the technique I used allows for only one strip to be glued at a time.

The almost 40 strips I used took more than 20 total hours to assemble. In order to keep the shape of the form, I built a frame out of MDF and actually glued the pieces to the frame. When the form was complete, I cut the strips off the frame, and then sanded the edges flush. Installing the electrical portion proved to be somewhat difficult, because the wood strips are very thin. After much trial and error, I fabricated a support that allowed the light to be mounted on the underside of the form.