Step 1: The Tube

First of all, I cut a piece of the poster container at the desired length. I used a saw for cutting this, but you can also use a sharp knife.

Before I drilled the holes I used a marker to mark the rough locations. Then I drilled holes in the tube using various sizes of drill bits. I started with the big holes using the stepped drill bit. When you're satisfied with those you can start making smaller holes to fill in the space between. Note that by making lots of holes the tube gets weakened a lot, so try not to push to hard or you will end up with a broken or deformed tube.

The holes made with drill bits are a little ragged, so I ended up cleaning those with files, sharp knives and other things. Try some different tools and just use whatever feels best.

Step 2: Cutting the Wood

The only thing you need to cut the wood is a sharp knife and a metal ruler, cutting stick or whatever you call it.

Step 3: (Failed) Bending the Wood

For some reason I wanted to "bend" the wood around the tube. So I went ahead and put it in some steamy hot water thing and bent it around a bottle. It went okay, but I ended up with some cracks along the fibers of the wood. Well, at least I tried.

Step 4: Applying the Wood

(I kind of failed to document this step thoroughly because I needed both hands to apply the wood to the tube.)

After failing to bend the wood I just slapped it around in the other direction. By bending the wood along the fibers instead of across (don't know how to say it) there was not as much tension in the wood and I could just roll it around the tube. But... because my wood wasn't wide enough I had to puzzle some pieces into it.

When the wood was in place I used band aids to keep it there tightly untill dry. When dried, the edges of the wood extending past the tube can be trimmed off with a sharp knife.

Step 5: Closing the Ends

(From now on I got exited and forgot to make pictures, so I'll try to draw things that need clarification.)

To close of the ends I cut out some round pieces of wood using a hole saw. They just a little bit too small, so I glued a few layers of magazine paper along the edge to make it fit really tight.

Note the hole in the "lid". This is so it can fit over the light.

When the lids were in place I finished everything off with a layer of the same veneer wood used for the tube to give it a nice and consistent look. Again, trim off the edges with a sharp knife.

Step 6: Sanding and Oiling

When the most excessive edges were trimmed I started sanding everything down with increasingly finer grained sanding paper. (Then I took a small break and enjoyed just feeling the wood.) Afterwards I applied a few layers of linseed oil to the wood. The oil I used was actually meant for food, but we never used it and it "expired" about five years ago.

Step 7: Mounting the Light

Now I'm just getting lazy and I assume you've got basic knowledge on how to mount a light switch and things.

To determine the position of the light I marked a square on one side of my block and used the center of that square as position of the light.

The light itself is mounted on the block by the little thing on the second picture of which I have absolutely no idea what to call it.

Step 8: Adding Some Cork

As you can see the block is slightly elevated by gluing some cork to the bottom of the block. Again, me being lazy and not wanting to make a gutter for the cable (or is it called a cable tray?).