Steampunk Lamp #2

Details

Written by Daniel Livingston

Before I had even finished making my first Steampunk Lamp, I was already planning a second one. I had realized what fun and how simple it was. Part of the fun was looking on eBay for old looking parts that would go well with the steam punk theme. I found a great pressure gauge, which was all brass, including the dial face. Next, I wanted something with buttons or switches on it. I was looking for something old but still in good shape. I looked at elevator buttons but they were all flat and wall mounted and I didn't want to have to build a new old-looking box. I'm just not good with wood. Then I started looking at intercoms and telephone switching equipment from the 1930's and 40's.

I finally came across an old small telephone switchboard made of wood with an aged metal (brass?) front panel and old-timey looking switches. It may have been part of a building or business intercom or phone system as it only had 6 switches. It had all the right things, old time looking switches, brass trim and a dark stained wood case that had some art-deco looking elements. There were two rows of lights, red and green, to indicate the status of each line. The different positions of the switches were labeled Busy & Hold.

Immediately, I started thinking of how I could utilize one of the switches to control the light. It would also be cool to light up a few of the indicators when the switch was thrown. Another trip to the big box store netted me a bunch of standard 1/2-inch pipe fittings. I had a pretty good idea of what I needed this time.

So, Prest-O Change-O, here's my second Steampunk Lamp. I'll have to see if I took picture of the innards of the telephone box. I couldn't use the switches in the box since they were only for low voltage so I added an ac-rated micro-switch with a long actuator that was in line with the left most switch. Also, I installed a low voltage transformer which drives three LED's that I put randomly behind three of the lamps.

Mouse over the picture to see it all lit up.