Laying out the pieces - all very shiny at this stage:
Bits to make the thingummy on the front. These are pre-soldered joins. Gneerally speaking, the end-feed joints end up looking a lot neater, but I liked the ridges on these.
Soldering turns the pipes a lovely darker colour. A few pipes that didn't get soldered at all had to be heated with the blowtorch just to get the colour right.
I was concerned the brass light socket might not solder well to the copper pipe, but it was actually very easy:
A little piece of brass rod soldered on holds the thingummy to the front:
The base was loads of fun to make. Lots and lots of small sections of tube needed cutting to join all these joints and bends together:
The real wires go down the inside of the pipes. You REALLY need to ensure this is earthed properly, especially if you left any sharp edges inside those pipes. It's meant to look dangerous, not be dangerous. Loads of insulating tape around those connectors, just in case.
The base, all soldered up. Any professional plumber would laugh at my pathetic soldering, but that's the best I could do. And I kind of like the look anyway.
Two more bits of brass rod hold the top U shaped assembly in place. Just drilled holes in both ends, inserted the rod, and soldered. Turns out to be very strong.
First assembly. No external wires yet, and the wrong bulbs, but it's coming together.
The fabulous Squirrel Cage light bulbs. You can get them from Lightbulbs Direct if you're in the UK, but they're expensive.
The external wiring. The goal here was to make it look like if you touched the wrong bit, you'd be toast. I think this works nicely.
This isn't real cloth-covered wiring - it's actually an aluminium coathanger, threaded through an old shoelace.
The final result, run through a dimmer so the bulbs are pleasant to look at. The actual glow of the bulb is much more yellow than this implies - my camera seems to be pretty sensitive to infra-red.
