Moresque lampe

Hey everyone, this is my first instructable, and i would like to share with you, how to make this  Moresque inspired Lamp.

As the most of the instructables stuff, this project is :

- Easy to make, no special skills needed.
- Looks good
- Costs virtually nothing ! ( will looks great with cardboard )

and the i tried to make something original

searching on the internet i found this website : http://www.storeystreet.com/smlglobe.html

selling this nice looking lamp, so i wanted to make something similar ! ..

For those who are lucky enough to have a laser cutter, there is an advantage, for me, i cannot afford one, so i will use the traditional way !

The lamp can be made with any material, cardboard, aluminum, plastic, plywood .. you choose your material and color, the principle is the same.

For me i will use plywood with a 3 mm thickness for this project.

This is my first instructable i will try to do my best explaining things, if something is unclear bear with me, and feel free to ask  :-)

Step 1 The design

So what way my inspiration ? ...... Traveling to southern spain and morocco, you will be amazed by the old mosaic, i was always fascinated by these , drawing them all the times, a quick search on the internet i found the patterns ( just search in google for : "arabic patterns" or something like this )

this website was too informativ too :

http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/projects/starpatterns/

( pic's from google !)

I won't go in details into the design of the lamp since it is not an instructables of how to design the lamp, but  I used 3ds max to model the sphere and  texture it .. to see how it is going to turn out, when it is done, i tried to copy the model on paper, and some adjustments, here and there it worked out

Comments

[heartart]

Absolutely gorgeous lighting fixture you've made! Way too hard for me to try, but
so intricate and beautiful. You sure could sell these! How do you change the bulb? By undoing a brad to reach in?

[canucksgirl]

How many pieces in total are there (broken down by piece type)?

I'm a little confused. You refer to "Stars", "Triangles" and what I'll call "Connectors".
I looked at the pdf and I see there are 24 stars, 12 triangles and 16 Connectors.

When I look at the photos, you say there is 8 of these connectors that make up the center "skeleton". Attached to that are Stars and triangles. The photo looks like there are 5 additional connectors used to form the upper bowl shape.

If I saw that correctly, then there should be a total of 18 Connectors, right?
(8 for the skeleton, 4 to connect the loop of Stars and Triangles and then 1 connector to close the bowl shape. Which would mean I would need another 5 for the lower bowl shape)

Can you please help me out and explain.

[beckri]

Absolutely Fantastic!! thank you so much for sharing, I'm excited to try to make one of my own.

[Angipants]

Any suggestions for scaling up the size? I was thinking of making mine ~20"+ big.

[klostome]

soooooo beautiful....
thanks 4 the instructions

[amelui]

i m thinking to make a super big one

[never_more]

In my college dorm we have these really ugly square lights on the ceiling. After seeing this, I have decided to make only half of the lamp and put it over the light for instant beauty. Thanks for the wonderful instructions!

[ratufz]

wooo..wooo..nice art of lamp

[bennejod]

Could you please describe how you were able to cut out the smaller internal section using your hacksaw, I cant figure out how you would get the blade in there. Many thanks

[jeff-o]

Whoa, you cut these by hand using that hand saw?? Huge props to you! How long did it take? I'm certain I would have killed my wrists doing this.

[stregoi]

it wasnt that easy .. took some time, but i bought a bigger saw, wich made tings musch more easier :) ..

[jeff-o]

I bet it wasn't easy. Wow. Nice work!

[Katzsta]

I too traveled to Spain many years ago and was amazed at the mosaics. Your designs are wonderful and very creative. A nice simulation of the mosaics I remember. And the "mosaiced picture" in the picture frame in your shot of your would also make a great instructable all on it's own. Adding various colors would bring the mosaics to life. I bet you could make these and sell them on etsy for a good price. I can't imagine the hours you spent cutting them out, but it's a fine project and shows your determination to be an artist in what you do. Great job and thank you for sharing.

[Nikkhroch]

this is just ABSOLUTELY amazing. very pretty!

[ngmingcheung]

Very nice and inspiring. I can't dwonload the patterns as ai file. Any suggestion, please advise. Thanks!

[kkyco]

Wow, what an amazing project.....I love it. I hope that you will present more of your ideas - maybe give us a starter project that is a little less scary for newbies? Like....the piece on the wall in your living room, which--when backlit--would be spectacular! Thanks!

[Molarch]

Thankyou for the Illustrator patterns...I have a Graphtec Robo Cutter that will cut 0.3mm card from Illustrator...will do this beautifully and very quickly.
I have also recently taken to using Ponoko to get things cut from various different materials using a laser cutter...will certainly be more expensive than doing it yourself...but an awful lot less hassle! Thankyou for the great instructable!

[stregoi]

at the begning i was thinking to send my patterns to ponoko to get them cuted. but when i made my calculation it wil be quite expensive ( more than 300 USD ) .. and that's a lot of money !

[Gene]

I have a laser cutter (at work that I can use, I don't own it :) ) and am open to making you a laser cut version. I think I can do it for a lot less than $300... :) You already did the hard part, and I think I might cut myself one. Very nice looking!

[Molarch]

Yowzers...! I hadn't figured it to be that much!

[stregoi]

well .. i had them to be shipped to Denmark, so that was kind of AOwtch ! .. but cardboard works also great !

[Molarch]

Their postage is prohibitively expensive...which is a shame as the rest seems very good value!

[arale]

You can choose one of Ponoko european hubs and save shipping. I live in Italy so I think I'll lasercut your pattern with Vectorealism.
Thanks for this great design! =)

[vbrun_200]

great instructable ....... this islamic shape of Architecture was so great

[don.alford]

nice instructable - any chance of the part_1.ai through to part_6.ai in pdf format as I don't have adobe Illustrator.

thanks
D

[stregoi]

Sure :) ... just take a look in step 2, you'll finde a PDF file.

[don.alford]

Whoops - missed that - thanks very much
Thanks

[omgthatscool]

OMG thats cool !!!!!!!!!!!

[cathrynm]

Gorgeous! I think I might try making one out of single ply cardboard...thicker than paper, less stiff than plywood. Thanks for your instructible - love it!

[mlorenz4]

Magnificent!!! I create digital art hyperbolic disks. You can see mina + others at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/poincare/

[stregoi]

wow .. very cool, you could easly make such lamp, with your patterns ! ... how do you create those hyperbolic disks ? .. just curious :)

[nhwadia]

Hi!

What a beautiful instructable. Thanks,
I am bothering you because you said, "on the internet i found patterns, and some mathematical models for making a spehere out of the pattern." Can you please lead me to the website where these can be found?

Much obliged.

Hama Dost

[stregoi]

hey :) ... you can take a look at this gogle search : http://www.google.com/images?q=islamic+patterns&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=549

and specially this website :

http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/projects/starpatterns/

[walshlg]

that is so very clever. Thanks!

[sfogel]

very cool!

[Lindie]

Beautiful work!

[magnolia_j]

Wow!!! These are soooo beautiful! Great job! :)

[Tool Using Animal]

Absolutely lovely.

[stregoi]

Thank you .. i am working on a new design ( i will make an instructuble when it finished ;)

[Wicken]

This work reminds me a great deal of some crochet and tatting patterns. They are designed using 'motifs' assembled to create the 3D form needed to cover an area of the body or in some cases a teapot or something similar. Like your forms, they draw on organic or natural shapes, especially stars, snowflakes, pineapples, and flowers, and rely also on geometric shapes.