Production: Router

This week I began production on the actual components of my lamp. The first thing i made was the copper rings because I decided it would be much easier to make the timber to fit the copper rather than the other way around. I cut the copper into 30mm strips and cut their lengths by calculating the circumference of the circles from the radius of the design.

I used a sheet metal roller to shape the circles and joined them together using silver solder in my jewellery workshop. At this stage i still need to sand down the excess solder and sand and polish the surface of the copper that will be visible. I will also need to drill holes in them to house the LEDs and bolts for joining them.

I am using a custom built router table that allows me to cut perfect circles at any width and depth. The basic design is that the timber has a hole in the center that slots onto an adjustable blot which allows it to turn over the router cutter that is sticking up from underneath. The depth of the router can also be adjusted so the depth of the cut can be adjusted.

I tested all my cuts on a piece of MDF first to make sure I was happy with the depth and most importantly to get the perfect fit for the copper rings. Once I found the perfect size I replicated it across all the pieces with the same rebate so that I didn't have to keep adjusting the settings.

The MDF was good to test on but of course it doesn't have a grain to consider. The first cut I made on the blackwood was a bit scary because the grain split across one side. At first i thought this would compromise the design but I think I got lucky and it will still be fine. After that I found that it was safer to only cut along the grain so I cut each circle in two halves, going backwards one quarter and then forwards 180 degrees, turning the router off, turning the timber to the other side and repeating the process. I was also careful only to cut small amounts at a time. There were a few places that I wanted to cut 15mm deep so I cut these in 5mm increments. This took longer but I didn't want to risk splitting the timber by attempting to cut too much.

Four of the main parts of my design are identical wooden circles, it is this component that you can see pictured here. The four pieces make up two complete circles (two halves mirrored). These pieces needed to be made in halves because the copper will be sandwiched between them. Making them in halves also made it easy to cut a trench in the middle to house the LEDs and a small rebate to hold the copper in place.

These circles will actually be hollow, however I couldn't cut out the center completely on the router because the hole in the center is what holds the piece onto the jig. The way I got around this was to cut the rebate the whole way around at a depth that is just short of the whole cut. I then did a second cut at a depth the cut through the timber but divided the circle into thirds and left small bridges to hold the center in place until I am finished using the router. I will cut these small bridges later using a coping saw.