In this video I’m making a lamp with a hidden switch that turns on and off by turning the wooden gears. Inspired by both Izzy Swan and Mattias Wandel I wanted to do a project with wooden gears. At the same time I wanted to make a lamp with a hidden or different switch mechanism. This quickly led to the combination that became this desk lamp with moving wooden gears to turn it on.
As I do with a lot of my projects; I started by cutting out the parts that I had turned into scale 1 to 1 templates. I use this technique a lot because it allows me to make fairly accurate parts without using a CNC machine like a laser or router and without a lot of measuring. But cutting out these gears was a new dimension to that. Turns out it’s a lot of work to cut gears and it requires some practise to get it right.
This project was a lot of fun to build and I am more than pleased with the result. I think it looks really good with the plywood but I can imagine that a walnut and oak version would look awesome as well.
If you want to make one yourself check the build plans: Mechanical Gears Lamp Buildplans
