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This is how to make an excellent excuse for driving a lag bolt into your wall, the Concrete Lightbulb Wall Hook. Functional yet sylish, it gives a nice industrial design feel wherever you mount it.
Last winter after breaking out the serious cold weather gear, I found myself fighting the coat rack next to the front door. It was, to put it bluntly, failing miserably. Tipping over, breaking off, it was a mess. I swore before the next winter I would drive some serious hooks into the wall that would handle all my heavy overcoat needs. I just haven't seen any kickass hooks yet that I liked enough to justify making serious holes in my walls.
Cut to the last few months. As mentioned in my blog ( here, here, and here) I've been playing around, trying to make a concrete lightbulb. Why? Because I find the contrast of blending a new material like concrete in an everyday shape like a lightbulb to be a great design element. So while messing around with these guys, I realized this would be a great excuse to drive lag bolts into my wall for hooks. By embedding a lag bolt into the concrete lightbulb, I could make a wall hook that was useful enough to handle anything I wanted to hang off it. Thus this project was born.
This is an entry in the Etsy/Instructables SewUseful Contest, so if you love this idea but don't want to make it yourself, not to worry! I have them for sale in my Etsy Shop. Click here to order yours today! Yes, it's an entry into a sewing contest without any sewing. Sometimes you just gotta.
Check out my other entry into the SewUseful Contest (also without sewing!) - "Big Brass Ones"
Last winter after breaking out the serious cold weather gear, I found myself fighting the coat rack next to the front door. It was, to put it bluntly, failing miserably. Tipping over, breaking off, it was a mess. I swore before the next winter I would drive some serious hooks into the wall that would handle all my heavy overcoat needs. I just haven't seen any kickass hooks yet that I liked enough to justify making serious holes in my walls.
Cut to the last few months. As mentioned in my blog ( here, here, and here) I've been playing around, trying to make a concrete lightbulb. Why? Because I find the contrast of blending a new material like concrete in an everyday shape like a lightbulb to be a great design element. So while messing around with these guys, I realized this would be a great excuse to drive lag bolts into my wall for hooks. By embedding a lag bolt into the concrete lightbulb, I could make a wall hook that was useful enough to handle anything I wanted to hang off it. Thus this project was born.
This is an entry in the Etsy/Instructables SewUseful Contest, so if you love this idea but don't want to make it yourself, not to worry! I have them for sale in my Etsy Shop. Click here to order yours today! Yes, it's an entry into a sewing contest without any sewing. Sometimes you just gotta.
Check out my other entry into the SewUseful Contest (also without sewing!) - "Big Brass Ones"
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Signing UpStep 1Tools and Materials
You will need a work area where a little sand and concrete mix or glass shards is not an issue. Make sure you have a small brush and dustpan available at all times. Normally you wait till the end to shatter the lightbulb, but it can happen at any point in this process. So be ready for cleanup from the very start.
TOOLS:
- Small pair of pliers
- small pair of wirecutters
- small screwdriver
- carbide scribe. You can use something like an awl or even a long skinny nail, but I found my trusty old scribe to be invaluable in this.
- plastic tub to mix the concrete in. I used an empty five pound tub of spreadable margarine.
- a scrap of wood to mix the concrete with. You could use an old wooden spoon or something like that if needed.
- plastic spoon to put the concrete mix into the lightbulb.
- A measuring cup and measuring spoons for adding the correct amount of concrete mix and water.
- a toothbrush you won't be using for your teeth anymore.
- coffee stirrer and plastic cups you "borrowed" from Starbucks
- Gloves and safety glasses. A must because the glass bulb often breaks and little shards go flying in all directions, including straight at your eyes.
- Misc. items like Sharpies, some rags, etc.
MATERIALS:
"Concrete" is a mix of cement, water and aggregates. My research showed that a sand mix, AKA mortar mix, is good when using a smooth surfaced mold like the inside of a lightbulb. It gives a very high shine when cured. A sand mix is different from your generic concrete in that the aggregates doesn't have any gravel, just various sizes of sand. I decided to do it with mortar mix instead of your standard bag of generic concrete.
- Quikrete Mortar mix. I got the ten pound bag at the local home improvement store for $2. This is enough to do over a dozen lightbulbs. I could have purchased the 60 pound bag for $7 at a much lower cost/volume, but this project really doesn't need that much.
- Lightbulbs. Just the cheapest standard sized incandescent lightbulbs you can find. I got mine at Walmart. A pack of four for 77 cents. Can't beat that with a stick.
- Water. You'll need about 4 tablespoons worth. I kept a bottle of water nearby on the bench and refilled it from the tap when needed.
- Lag Bolt. I'm using a 5/16" lag bolt, 3.5" long. 5/16" was the largest sized lag bolt I could fit into the lightbulb without cutting off the head. I didn't want to do that because the head gives the bolt a lot of grip when embedded in the concrete. With a lag bolt 5/16" in diameter, I can drill in the wall a 1/4" hole to get a good balance between grip and ease of installing. In other words, it turns easily into the wall yet holds really well.
TOOLS:
- Small pair of pliers
- small pair of wirecutters
- small screwdriver
- carbide scribe. You can use something like an awl or even a long skinny nail, but I found my trusty old scribe to be invaluable in this.
- plastic tub to mix the concrete in. I used an empty five pound tub of spreadable margarine.
- a scrap of wood to mix the concrete with. You could use an old wooden spoon or something like that if needed.
- plastic spoon to put the concrete mix into the lightbulb.
- A measuring cup and measuring spoons for adding the correct amount of concrete mix and water.
- a toothbrush you won't be using for your teeth anymore.
- coffee stirrer and plastic cups you "borrowed" from Starbucks
- Gloves and safety glasses. A must because the glass bulb often breaks and little shards go flying in all directions, including straight at your eyes.
- Misc. items like Sharpies, some rags, etc.
MATERIALS:
"Concrete" is a mix of cement, water and aggregates. My research showed that a sand mix, AKA mortar mix, is good when using a smooth surfaced mold like the inside of a lightbulb. It gives a very high shine when cured. A sand mix is different from your generic concrete in that the aggregates doesn't have any gravel, just various sizes of sand. I decided to do it with mortar mix instead of your standard bag of generic concrete.
- Quikrete Mortar mix. I got the ten pound bag at the local home improvement store for $2. This is enough to do over a dozen lightbulbs. I could have purchased the 60 pound bag for $7 at a much lower cost/volume, but this project really doesn't need that much.
- Lightbulbs. Just the cheapest standard sized incandescent lightbulbs you can find. I got mine at Walmart. A pack of four for 77 cents. Can't beat that with a stick.
- Water. You'll need about 4 tablespoons worth. I kept a bottle of water nearby on the bench and refilled it from the tap when needed.
- Lag Bolt. I'm using a 5/16" lag bolt, 3.5" long. 5/16" was the largest sized lag bolt I could fit into the lightbulb without cutting off the head. I didn't want to do that because the head gives the bolt a lot of grip when embedded in the concrete. With a lag bolt 5/16" in diameter, I can drill in the wall a 1/4" hole to get a good balance between grip and ease of installing. In other words, it turns easily into the wall yet holds really well.
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1) I used a pair of dikes to snip off the metal button on the end of the bulb. This exposes the bare blue glass and has a dimple for a small tool.
2) A very small drill bit was used to tap against the exposed hole, creating cracks in the glass (Hold the bulb and bit in one hand and tap the bit on a concrete floor, most any other surface won't work. Just do it 20-30 times and let gravity do most the work)
3) Once the blue glass cracks use needle nose pliers to pick at the fragments, the first one is the hardest. Just get the blue glass at this point.
4) You should have the blue glass out and be looking into the sealed bulb. Insert the needle nose pliers as deep as they'll go and give a little tension on the handle till the inside breaks.
5) Use the needle nose closed to ream out the glass, you'll end up with an almost perfect hole. Just go a little at a time. Don't try and do it all at once.
6) Clean it out. Fill the bulb with a couple tsps of Morton salt. Cap the end with a thumb and shake it. Dump out the salt and repeat a few times. It will be perfectly clean and shiny.
7) Rinse and prepare concrete. The inside can still be wet, it's getting filled with concrete anyway.
8) I used off the shelf concrete mix (5000psi), but screened it to 1/8" (took out rocks larger than 1/8", so mortar mix is about the same thing) But I mixed it a bit wetter than the photos here. The consistency was about like wet oatmeal, and was pourable (Not easy to do, make it a bit too wet and add spoonfulls of powder to get there). I used a funnel to pour the mix into the bulb.
9) Wait 7 days. 3 day cure is a bit too soon to be really hard. Best if you wait 28 if you want a very hard concrete but no one will do that.
10) Break the glass off. I used a 5 gallon bucket filled with water and submerged the bulbs and tapped gently with a steel bar. I mostly brushed off the remaining glass with the leather gloves I was wearing.
11) Dry thoroughly. The concrete sucks up a lot of water. This is where I am now. I plan to let them dry for a couple weeks in a warm dry location then seal. I was left with very smooth and perfect bulbs without any bubbles and certainly concrete in the 7000psi+ range :)
Winter entails :
Sleeveless t shirts
short pants
and crocs
Where did you buy it for your project?Thanks Elljayq
Yaaay another wall hook !
This will remove the coating without any scratches (not that that really matters in this case) and also removes the chance of getting a too over eager when cleaning with a toothbrush/bottlebrush and pushing through the glass (as I have done more times than I'd like to admit).
concrete does not air dry like clay. it is a chemical reaction that causes it to harden, similar to an epoxy.
in fact during the construction and repair of bridges, oil wells, hydrolic cement is used and it will cure underwater. remember the well repair in the gulf of mexico?
the curing in a light bulb would be near perfect and if left long enough it would have the same tensil strength as granite or even greater.
If you experimented with making these partially hollow (perhaps using a liquid filled balloon), you could probably reduce the amount of cement used, and their weight without making them so thin as to be too fragile.
If the weight is reduced bellow their current shipping category, you could perhaps both increase your profit margin AND pass on some of the savings to your Etsy customers too.
Just a thought. Love these alot, as soon as I'm not renting I plan on giving them a go.. Best wishes.
i dont know if the energy 1s contain it but either way, mercury is a heavy metal, just carefully remove it(brush it on to a piece of paper) and remove it from your house(dont ask me how to dispose of it as the epa doesnt like what i'd say)
but i've been playing with mercury on and off my whole life and it hasnt hurt me although mercury poisoning is a real danger
but leaving the house for 15 minutes will NOT do anything as to removing it, it will still be there when you get back
BTW, Good instructable, because of it I'll be using mortar mix and covering my forms with glass for my plant containers, it will take less work to polish them.
All that aside, I think it is a fantastic project, though.
are you talking about CFLs?
ie, the SPIRAL light bulbs?
they are a special class of floresent that has the ballast and everything built in
hm... cement wouldnt work for this as the thin diameter of the tube would be too fragile as a coat hook
but maybe epoxy, anyone wanna try it?
cfls DO contain mercury but i've yet to encounter a incandecent with mercury in it
i was thinking of screwing it into my door cuz i need a door hanger, but my doors a bit hollow and flimsy :P