But they’re kind of ugly, so I thought I’d make them prettier with my mad Glowforge skilz. On my third try (#1 was cardboard and #2 was draftboard), this is what I ended up with:
My original plan was to use plywood, but the cheap LED bulbs are too dim to light the room up just through the cracks, so I ended up going with acrylic. I used clear acrylic on the top and back to let more light through, but it’s still pretty dim. I’m hoping it will seem brighter in the middle of the night when my eyes aren’t in “daytime” mode.
The shade just sits down over the fixture for easy removal. (Not sure WHY, exactly, since you can’t change the bulb in this model…)
The bottom opening has two notches that accommodate this particular model’s shape and keep it correctly aligned. YMMV with other fixtures.
The four rings are meant to be glued together and adhered around the opening in the bottom of the shade, flat side against the back, to reduce wobble when it’s sitting on the fixture. If you have one with an incandescent bulb, you might not want to use all 4. (Assuming it fits at all!)
The fit of the parts is a little loose. I’m going to pretend I meant for it to be that way, to avoid stressing the acrylic. Even though I originally designed it for wood.
When cut from acrylic, you may have to individually pop out each little heart-shaped hole. Put on a good audiobook and get a cup of coffee first, and it won’t seem quite as tedious.
Thank you for sharing the file! It’s going into my folder of miscellaneous designs which I fully expect to browse through one of these days and pick out a few fun things to make. This is a very cool adaptation.
A great design that could be used for many things. It might be of interest to know that at 300-degrees F or so acrylic is like rubber and will bend to any shape and hold it after it cools. I once bent some clear that was 14’ long and 4’ wide for a business that wanted their front window to wave like a sine curve.
I hope you saved all the little heart nubbins you worked so hard for. Glued to a printed card every time a child comes home with a scraped knee you could give them a purple heart
I can see the file @geek2nurse uploaded in the first post to this thread. It is located just above the “notes” area.
Each browser is different. If you cannot see the file, maybe you can try a different browser? I am using Safari, and I can see it (it is very faint, however).
Once you locate the file, you should be able to right-click to download it.
If you make one, please share! I love to see pictures of the things folks create.
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