We've had a small crisis since I finished the desk: Yes, that's right. My lamp broke.
Or rather the cheap plastic base did. Now, this is kind of a crisis, as we're rushing headlong into winter- we had a light dusting of snow last week- and that means it's starting to get dark these days, about an hour and half
before it starts getting light.
I use this lamp to draw, of course, and that's what helped it break- the new desk is bigger than the old one, and I have to extend the lamp further over to reach the drawing pad. It does me no good when the shade is resting on my stack of hard drives.
I'd been meaning to make a new mount anyway- that's half the reason I put the Unistrut rails along the back of the desk- but had set that little project aside 'til I had more free time. Well, I need this lamp to make the comic, so yeah, that made it into a crisis. Shove everything to the back burner, buy a phone so I can unplug it, tell the President he'll have to give me my Congressional Medal of Honor some other day, and tell the Nobel committee I'll get back to them.
Root through my pile of random metal, and find a chunk of ratty 1" aluminum round that looks like it desperately wants to be bolted to a desk, chuck it up, face and chamfer the end...
Then drill it to "that looks about right" to fit the end of the lamp pivot.
Dig into yet another pile of offcuts and find a short section sawed from a large piece of aluminum channel extrusion. Trim it down in the bandsaw, smooth up the edges in the mill, and cut down the one tapered leg so it's more or less square.
Bandsaw to length, clean up and square the cut edges.
Mark a rough idea of the center of the mounting side of the tab, drill, and open the hole on one of them up a bit to accommodate any slop in my dimensions. (Considering I have yet to actually measure anything at this point.
)
Give 'em a light lick on the belt grinder and deburr wheel, and they're pretty much done.
Move over to the welding table and clamp things so they look about right...
Tack, and then weld that puppy solid.
Yeah, it'll hold, but the only way those welds will look like the proverbial stack o' dimes, is if you convert 'em to pre-Commonwealth Zlotys first. And then squint really hard.
Set up, clamp and tack then other tab...
Weld the bejeebers out of it, and leave the whole thing to cool while I go make myself a sammich.
Once it's cool, find some appropriate bolts and washers, get out a couple fresh Unistrut T-nuts, and bolt 'er on 'bout thar.
Plunk the lamp into its new seat, flick it on, sit back, and watch another episode of
This Old Tony.
Crisis averted. If the Pope is still holding, tell him I'll take his call now.
Doc.
