Melted Bulb Lamp

Lighting Surrealism

The project began as part of a glass design class at Emil Carr University. My intention was to create a large vase or pitcher-like object which could be used for various things around the home. This class was my first time using glass as a medium and thus the expectation of the final outcome was low, however I still aimed at creating something useful with this opportunity.

The glass-blowing process requires many hours to master. Picking, handling, shaping and blowing is a multi step process which requires patience and a keen eye to understand when the best point to form the shape is. My attempt at the vase took multiple tries to get something large enough for this type of object, and during the blowing process the glass took the shape of a large lightbulb before partially deflating and creating an odd shape. With limited time to work with this was my best representative piece, and so I went with it as my final outcome.

The final outcome of blowing and shaping it was a large bulb shaped object which had creases and wrinkles in the glass. It’s form reminded me of the Salvador Dali painting The Persistence of Memory, giving it a surrealist appearance and feel with how fragile yet durable it was. Confused as to what useful purpose this object could have, I decided that it had some potential to make an interesting lamp due to it’s lightbulb-esque shape.

I brought the glass object with me into my following metal foundry class to continue building the lamp. Here I would be able to create an object out of brass using lost wax casting. This allowed me to complete the lamp by creating the shade and light housing.

Using Rhino 3D, I modeled a bulb screw that would fit onto the opening of my glass bulb. To create a perfect fit between the bulb screw and glass it was first modeled using Rhino 3D modeling software, then the irregular shape of the glass opening was 3D scanned using LiDAR to get the exact proportions for the model. This scanned model was then used to cut into the bulb screw model.

The metal base was then 3D printed using a special filament called PolyCast which melts at a lower temperature, allowing for less resistance when pouring the liquid metal into the mold. The 3D model was then hand sanded, followed by soaking in a bath of isopropyl alcohol which smooths out the lines created during the printing process to create a fine finish.

Wax runners and sprues were then attached to the model before creating a metal cylinder casing to house the 3D printed mold. This container was then filled with a silica sand mixture along with water which was allowed to take the shape of the mold and harden to create an investment. Once hardened, molten brass was poured through the opening into the wax to create my brass object.

Once cool, the container mixture was broken open, leaving the brass mold ready to have the finishing touches applied. The process of finishing the model involved cutting, and sanding using multiple levels of grit fineness to give it a more polished look.

After the metal base was finished, a small pot light was added to the inner housing and connected to the glass bulb. The result is a unique lamp displaying surreal qualities, with the metal base acting as a lamp shade and the glass used as the base to support it.