Kumiko Lamp
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The Lamp
This was originally built to be a light in our bedroom that mimics the sun rise with the help of a Philips Hue light bulb. Upon seeing it completed, my wife insisted on putting it in the living room where it can be seen by others instead of being squirreled away in our bedroom. The design was inspired by seeing Japanese style andon lamps on (of course) Pinterest.
The Wood
The Kumiko pattern, or lattice, is unfinished basswood while the frame is made of walnut. The walnut was a cutoff from a much larger slab that my uncle was working on and instead of the cutoff hitting the burn pile it made its way into my shop.
The Joinery
For the most part, the entire assembly is friction fit. Only key points on the edges of the kumiko lattice are glued where there isn’t a full saddle joint to hold it together. The vellum paper was affixed to the backsides of kumiko panels with a glue stick and the final exception being the bulb mount being affixed using stainless steel strews and the cord tension relief connected via brass screws.
The Finish
The kumiko panels are unfinished, and the walnut is simply finished with walnut oil. I applied the walnut oil with #0000 steel wool which eased the edges ever so slightly and smoothed out the faces just a tad more. Initially the walnut was rough planed in the planer and brought to final dimension with my Lie-Nielson #4 smoothing plane that leaves a glass smooth finish after taking ~0.001” shavings off on each pass.