Stacked Glass LED Light

Step 6: A stack of glass

You may be thinking;  "shouldn't the glass pieces be glued together?"  This opens up a BIG can of worms.  First of all just stacking the glass up works perfectly fine and how often are you going to move it anyway?  To dust it you simply remove the top piece and clean it.  Sadly it is not easy to glue the pieces together because you get bubbles in the glass which ruins the look of the light.  Many types of glass glue as well as transparent silicon were tried along with several methods of clamping, nothing really worked.  There is a way but it involves the building of a special containment cage as well as a specalized UV curing glass.  You may even want to design some sort of copper wire containment cage or ?????  This light has been in use for 4 months without incedent but we have not have an earthquake either.   

Comments

[stormthirst]

If you have children in your house - not even your own children - anyone's children then you will figure out a way to stop 1ft of glass shards from doing some serious damage.

Personally I'd build a cage around the glass - perhaps out of copper like the base - or maybe steel and then copper plate the steel. Copper plating is ludicrously easy with copper sulphate, though it won't be shiny or flat

[skaar]

if it's tempered glass, the edges wouldn't be terribly sharp in the first place, walking on tempered glass shards barefoot is pretty similar to walking on crushed stone, feels terrible, but won't do any real damage.

there's glue, that would keep it stuck together, even if it were beaten on with an iron pipe, heck, even plain silicone caulking would do that. like someone said, the edges of non-tempered glass could be heat ablated(blowtorch on the edges), but it wouldn't look as nice, or be that much safer.

what i would go for, is different shapes... maybe spacers of different materials or sizes, a small blowtorch and vacuum vessel could be used to holes for an led stick to go through, for brighter light. with a hole through, a rod could be put through to make it a hanging lamp.

then there's the possibility of using a glass cutting hole saw, use an abrasive circular saw to cut squares with curved L shaped cuts inside, add wedge shaped spacers, a pot lid with a hole, perhaps a glass one. make two round ones, fit them together, face to face, put a circular fluorescent tube inside, rough the glass lid for frosting.

[skaar]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/sKaar/invention/ringlamp-glassstack01.png banged together something... and it looks sooo retro... if i could figure out how to put the lights inside, it'd glow, but, nogo.

[pddonovan2011]

There are reasonably priced diamond edged hole saws that cut through glass. i use them to install protein skimmers in glass Aquariums. Buy one, go slow, use lots of oil and it cuts through very nicely'

[pddonovan2011]

As a suggestion! Place a Quartz Crystal Rock under the stack, hang a green, red or blue laser directly overhead down the center of the stack so it is dispersed through out the stack by the refraction of the quartz crystals. Internal lighting that originates from outside the stack! I'll bet the light would dance all over the room! The color of the tempered glass should nullify the damaging wave length of the laser light!

[mginster]

Have you read what there has been written in that picture - this means it is rendered by some kinda software - seems not to be real.

[skaar]

you mean the link to the one i made in sketchup?

[bobelon]

Huh?

[trustr]

A solution for this problem would be to take a gas burner to round the edges

(... is this proper english?)

[mrmerino]

yes, but is the burner supposed to melt the edges together?

[trustr]

it's worth a try :-)
when you burn the edges the whole thing could stick together

but you have to consider the tension of the glass when it's cooling down

[mankysteve]

You trying building the stack in a mould and pouring an epoxy resin around it

[mercury]

i think this is the best idea for keeping the original look, though this method would take away the off-set edges and make it flat on all four sides. it would still look nice.

my first thought was to glue the glass together and use it to cast a mould, then use resin to create the actual lamp design. perhaps the center could be hollowed out by inserting a tube 3/4 of the way through the mould, which would decrease the overall weight as well. however, casting resin is pretty expensive which makes my idea sort of unrealistic... some nice ideas here in the comments, and the original is wonderful, of course.

[mrmerino]

what if you spread a very thin layer of epoxy between the layers as you build?

[trustr]

hmmm... why epoxy, i think the adhesion of oil (I dont know how fast water evaporates between two layers of glass) would do it, too

could somebody try it? i dont have enough glass tiles at home and I dont want to break a window ^^

[bobelon]

Any glass shop should have lots of used glass laying around. We got ours for free and although there is a learning curve involved in cutting it, it is not rocket science. You need a firm but not white knuckle even stroke. Never go back over the line again. We just finished another nice glass project and will be posting it soon. On another note, remember that glass is a liquid and will melt together given enough time. Saludos

[static]

The contention that glass really never solidifies, and us still flowing centuries later has been debunked To suggest that the glass in these plates in time would flow together takes the old wives tale to another level.

I'm fairly certain the driver for these kind of LED Pulse Width Modulate the current sent to the LED. A quick use of google leads to circuit example. Even one here at instructables, but why would anybody be surprised yo learn that? :)

In the event one could fie polish the cut edges, and maintain tight 90 decree corners. brass angle iron or wood corner trim could be used to keep the stacked plates in place. An original idea AFIK, I agree with the other commenter a nighttime photo of the lamp lit would be a nice addition the instructable.

[mankysteve]

Another choice would be to drill a hole though each glass sheet expect the top one which you could counter sink and fill with adhesive.

[phevtron]

wouldnt be as cool as glass but something like plexiglass or any other plastic imitation of glass would do. i think.....

[Buskieboy]

Excellent light, very eye catching. I agree if you put it in a minimal copper frame it would stablize it but not take away anything from the look. It could be made to look like a seafarers lamp? In keeping with the theme?
Anyway, I'm curious, even though it doesn't get moved, how much does this thing weigh? It sounds very heavy.

[flamekiller]

According to my quick sketch w/sensors and specified material in Solidworks (I didn't feel like doing the math myself), 50 3x3 plates of glass will weigh about ten pounds. But, the density of glass is highly variable depending on the type, so ymmv.

[imboox2]

Hobby shops have a good choice of materials to use as a frame. I would use 1/4" brass or copper 90 degree angle material. You can solder it. The brass you'd have to use an acid core, the copper a rosin core.

[imbignate]

since copper is part of the theme I would simply frame the glass with 8 vertical copper rods, soldered at the base each about 0.5" from the edge and soldered at the base. It would add a ton of stability and have no impact on the quality of the glass.

[bobelon]

This is a nice idea which has been considered. We thought of using uncoated brass brazing rod threaded on one end and screwed into the base.

[imbignate]

That would be good as well, though as the piece ages the brass and copper will look fairly different. It all depends on what you want, and how difficult it would be to drill or tap the base.

[Zovits]

Maybe if you just stacked all the glass tiles and spread glue on the sides of this tower, it would hold them firmly enough for regular use.

[bobelon]

We have used clear acrilic sealer in this manner, it does work pretty well and only slightly detracts from the overall look. You have to be pretty finical to notice. Time will tell if the claimed resistance to uv light will yellow the coating.

[Clarkus12]

"This light has been in use for 4 months without incedent but we have not have an earthquake either." Knock on wood.

[cbg3868]

I really like the idea of a copper wire cage. I, too, am concerned about the stability of the lamp. If you have grandchildren or pets, you will understand. The copper wire can be formed with ease. Do not go too light with the wire. I would think less than 12 ga. and more than 20. With all of the clean glass, I would first form the cage, flux, and solder where the wires meet. I might also suggest that two wires wrap on either side. Leave the loose ends to solder to the base. If you don't. like the silver of the solder then before installing you can clean off the flux and patina with copper patina or copper nitrate. The copper patina in stained glass stores. DON'T get the patina on your clothes or the glass. DON'T drill holes in the glass. Unless you are very proficient you will have at least 50 broken 3X3" squares of glass. DON'T grind the edges of the glass. This will kill the beauty of the light. And now for something totally different. Go to your local stained glass shop and get some clear transparent colored glass. Have fun!

It seems that the hardest part is breaking the glass! This comes from a stained glass artist.

[bobelon]

Cutting the glass can be a bit frustrating till you get the hang of it but the good news is you should be able to get the glass for free because glass shops do not recycle old glass. That being said it seems like the older the glass the harder it is to cut??????? Maybe a glass master could explain that.

[mfcds]

Knock on wood.
This glass lamp was sitting on that wood.
Your hand is now taking a shower of glass.

[nzlemming]

And you have been eaten by a Grue...

[Spakman]

The only problem with the coaster idea is that they would be sharp is there any way to blunt the edges? Its a good idea though

[bobelon]

We do have a set of coasters and the edges were "knocked down" with 220 wet/dry sandpaper without adversly affecting the visual. Removing the sharp edges on the lamp however did change the look. They are not a problem though unless you touch the glass and any dummy should know you don't fool around with sharp glass pieces. Just stack up the glass, turn on the lamp and enjoy! But thank you all for your concern for our kids (none) our cat (not) and our dog that we have trained not to play with sharp glass.

[spikes0577]

It looks great! I think twisting the glass panes could apport interesting effects to light

[Eleventy]

What about drilling a hole through the center of all the pieces and stacking them on an acrylic or glass rod? Maybe you leave the top piece undrilled and just glue that one on to the top of the rod (to minimize where you have bubbling issues).

[combatboots7]

The LED is in the center, so it would be difficult to mount a center rod. Two rods in the opposite corners could work too, and wold be easier to mount. The tricky part for both is making the holes even on every tile, and without breaking any tiles (unless you have a cheap/easy supply of tiles).

[dezertdude]

you would think just a small bit of silicon or superglue in each corner as you stack would do the trick

[bariwonderful]

glued = stable
unglued = coasters!

[ceknight]

Actually bariwonderful just came up with an awesome dual use for this. I agree that the bulk of the lamp should be secured in some way. But, how cool would it be to be entertaining your guests with the soft light of this lamp glowing on the coffee table as you sit down with your drinks. With the top, oh say 6 - 8 panes unglued, you just hand out their drink coasters from the top of the lamp!