Cadillac Dystopic Lamp

Step 3 The Base

When you have acquired all of your supplies you need to work on dry fitting the parts for the base.

Get out your Tubing Cutter, Copper Pipe, and Pipe Fittings.

Take the Labels off of your fittings, pipe, and Green Bottles.  I did this with crazy hot water.

Cut these lengths of Copper Pipe

2" x 4
2 1/2" x 7

Now dry fit your creation together.

After you know that it fits you need to drill a 1/4" hole or larger in the bottom of  the center three way fitting for the electrical cord to go through

First use the hammer and nail to center punch the hole.  Then use a 1/4" bit or larger to drill the hole.  It is likely that the drill will catch the brass at this point if your not using a drill press.  Be careful.

Take your dremel and clean the hole up.

Start Sweating.

Sweating a Copper Pipe is dangerous business.  You can burn yourself badly if you screw up.  If you are under 18 get a parent to help

Here are some resources for sweating together Copper Pipe

Popular Mechanics - "How to Sweat a Watertight Copper Fitting"

Easy2diy - "Soldering Copper Pipes Tutorial"

This is my 2 Cent Tour

1) Get out your first pipe and fitting
2) Put flux on both the end of the pipe and the fitting
3) Put pipe and fitting together
4) Put pipe and fitting in a machinist vise with the fitting below the pipe
5) Put on Gloves
6) Heat the line between the fitting and pipe with the Propane Blow Torch until the flame is green
7) Apply solder all the way around the joint
8) Wipe the joint clean
9) Let the Joint Cool

Now you need to simply sweat all 20 joints required for the base so your dry fit looks like your soldered fit.

Be careful around 3 way joints.  When you heat up one side the other sides also heat up.  Sometimes this breaks joints.

Don't burn yourself

After you finish the base.  Get the Electrical box, punch out one hole in the box, attach the fitting to the electrical box, wrap the top of the top pipe of the base with electrical tape.  Tighten the fitting around the brass pipe