Another strange creation from the Mind of Puffball. Again, we had some nice, thick chunks of Hawaiian Koa we did not want to slice up. Both from the ‘cut off’ bin in a regional lumber yard, one was already chopped into the rough shape of a triangle. We propped it up on top of a rectangle, and poof, the Wedge Lamp was born! That’s when the easy part ended. We stylized the base and wedge-shaped arm on the bandsaw, slimming them down at gentle angles to reduce the chunky effect. At first we were going to attach the wedge directly to the base, but it didn’t look quite right. And it was just too easy. Instead, we turned a small piece of Cocobolo on the lathe and drilled a hole through the center for the cord, thereby creating a small ‘neck’. Then, wanting to balance out the Cocobolo neck, we abandoned our original plan for the pedestal portion and made that, too, out of a piece of Cocobolo, angling the ends and sides to match the angles of the base and wedge arm. Then the real fun began. We had to get the cord from the bottom through the top. Drilling through the platform was a snap. Except for making sure it was exactly aligned with how we wanted all the other parts to line up. Then we drilled through the extremely hard Koa base. Tougher. Finally, we had to drill at an angle from two sides of the wedge, and get those holes to meet in the middle, align with the neck, the base and the pedestal and then fish the power cord all the way through before glue up, then glue all the pieces together without gluing the cord down in place, just in case someone in the future needed to adjust the cord. Then there was the simple matter of holding all of these angled pieces in their proper positions, on surfaces that no clamp would hold to without sliding off. Yeah, we didn’t think about any of that when we started. We just had a cool design idea and starting making. And do we ever love the result! We finished off the look by filling some hairline cracks in the Koa with turquoise-colored epoxy and finishing the piece in multiple coats of shellac for a high gloss shine that really makes the wood grains pop.

This lamp measures 19” wide at the widest (wedge arm), 16 1/2” tall (at the peak of the wedge) and 2 1/2” deep (at the base). It includes a 6 foot cord with inline switch and a long life LED bulb (60 watt equivalent). The idea of course with this bulb tucked up into the Koa is to gently illuminate a desk or end table—a nice amount of light at the start or end of a day, when you don’t want to be blinded by a too bright bulb. It is mood lighting, and not so much a reading lamp.