And 221B has lights!

Hi Everyone! Today’s frustratingly successful bending of things to my will was the lights for the ceilings. Or shall I say “cut crystal light fixtures?”

The design on these was interesting, I wanted to engrave and use clear acrylic to mimic the look of a cut crystal light fixture, but the only glue I currently have that works with acrylic is super glue, and it makes it cloudy, so that wasn’t going to work. So I used a draftboard center post with a latch/knob thingy on the bottom, and five layers of acrylic, all engraved with diamond pattern to catch the light. The design trick was hollowing out the center while still leaving a stable post mount in the middle so they’d stack and not slide apart, so I was only able to hollow each half of each layer.

Anyway, the string of lights comes down through the ceiling, extra wire is coiled up and stuffed in, and I managed (barely) to get five lights in each half of each light, for 20 light bulbs total. A notch cut out from the ceiling hole gives clearance for the wires, the center post extends beyond the ceiling and is mounted with a disk glued just to the top of the post.


I used a strand of fairy lights (the kind with the thin wires and a AA battery pack) and I think it was a 25 light strand, so there are some unusable lights up in the “attic.” I still have a bit more to do to get it ready for final reveal, but these do light up the room pretty sufficiently.

Thanks for taking a look, and until tomorrow (hopefully, because now I’m itching to get it done), Happy Forging!

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Wow this is beautiful!

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That is such a neat effect.

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Ok, I give up perpetual kudos to you.

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Wow. This is completely brilliant!

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Oh, wonderful!

Have you tried uv resin as a glue? It cures clear.

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I’m so excited to see the end project!

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Holy cow, so clever and lovely!

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