Lamps

The session on stained glass we had a few weeks ago started my daughter on making some little lamp shades. I promised her I would see about making up some kind of fitting to hold them when they get done, she is getting close to finishing one, so I set too at that yesterday and welded it up today. The light fitting stems and sockets were from a skip at a local shop. The brassy looking tube is one I haven't annealed yet, the three poking out of the blobby wall bracket base have been done and bent to a little shallower curve. Annealing steel is done by heating to a nice red color at least and then allowing the metal to cool slowly. It was fun beating the blob out of a flat sheet. I wasn't sure how much I could get it to go, but it worked out OK and it wasn't too hard to hit out a flat rim around the edge and apply some texture to it in the press. The leaves are blanks cut out of the same plate as the blob and then struck a few times in the little pattern I made up ages ago for door window decoration. They are then teased into better shape with pliers and whatnot while they are red hot. The flowers didn't grip too well struck from the thin plate, they really needed to be pressed out of a thicker blank heated in the press before striking, but I added a few little stamen things with the TIG welder and they look OK. Some encouragement for missy to finish the glass bits I hope.

Meanwhile the solar project hit a bit of a snag today as I hadn't realized one of my parts was cast iron. Not good for welds and one of the welds failed as I was testing the thing in the shop waggling it about under load. I will have to rethink the attachment. I am also struggling to comprehend the operation of N channel MOSFETs, the web is a lot of help, but my results on the floor so far are not showing the degree of repeatability one requires from a rude mechanical. I was delighted to find the operational amplifier relatively simple to comprehend, but the Mosfet is essential to handle the switching on and off of the motor as well as changing its rotation direction. Even the little window motors draw about 3 amps when they are working, so little hobby transistors or H-Bridges that only handle 1 amp are no good.

Given time I hope to prevail.