Desk Lamp Using Scrap Wood

Some scrap plywood strips and MDF board pieces were lying from wood work at my home. Instead of throwing them, I have decided to make a desk lamp from them. The lamp I imagined was having two arms and a movable lamp holder, which was to be mounted on a stem.

Selected some plywood strips and joined two similar MDF cutouts to make the base of the lamp.

Two 3/4" wide plywood strips having 13" and 8" length are selected as lamp arms.
A 2.5" piece is cut from a plywood strip as lamp stem. The stem will be bolted in a channel inside the MDF base. The stem is fixed into the lamp's MDF base and screwed from the back side so that it can withstand the weight of two arms and the lamp holder.

Another channel or mounting hole is carved in the MDF from the bottom side so that the on/off button can be inserted into.

The MDF board, 2.5" stem and two arms were thoroughly cleaned and polished smooth using 150 and 300 no. sand paper. The stem and the arm strips were polished, sanded and again polished, three times by applying Touchwood wood polish from Asian Paints.

I have decided to cover the base and two sides of the arms using sunmica (veneer) which was also lying around from earlier wood work in my house. All the sides of the base were then glued and covered with sunmica. Excess sunmica was then chiselled away.

Two 6mm door aldrop bolts with nuts were selected to tighten the arms. To protect them from rusting, I have enameled them with clear nailpolish which will protect their steel shine for years to come.

Two 6mm holes were drilled in the long arm, 1.5" from both edges. One 6mm hole was drilled in 8" long short arm's one end and the another end was rounded off so that it can hold the lamp holder.

The lamp holder was an old plastic toy part which had a white shade on it. The lamp holder was painted matte black.

All the parts were then assembled and the matching black wire was routed through a hole in the base and connected to the on/off switch.

A scrap wood Desk Lamp is ready now!