Heart Lamp

This project meant a lot to me. Two good friends were getting married and I wanted to give them something truly unique. I made them a lamp that became more of an art piece. It doesn’t put out any useable light, but it does add a nice glow to a room.

I started this project with an old Muffler; it was free after asking at a local service shop.

After cutting open the muffler, I had a lot of cleaning to do. There was a crusty black coating all over the inside, which I knocked loose with a hammer then scrubbed with a wire brush. Once the muffler was clean, I was ready to transfer my design.

With the outline done I carefully cut out selected areas with my torch. At this point in the project, I applied approximately 15 layers of clear coat to both the muffler and the base.

I placed several layers of clear acrylic glass on the inside of the muffler and melted it with a propane torch. This put many tiny bubbles into the plastic; it also allowed the plastic to form itself around the holes in the muffler giving it a convex look.

An Oxygen Acetylene torch turns the plastic black and does not work well for this application; propane is the way to go.

Two holes drilled in the back allow mounting the muffler, after that the top was ready.

Putting Light on the inside:
I used 5 LEDs to add lighting to the inside of the sculpture. The LEDs are 5000 millicandela each before 9V power can be run to the LEDs. I soldered 230 Ohm resisters to the LEDs. By soldering the resister to the LEDs and then covering, with heat shrink tubing I avoid having to set up any type of circuit board.

The base of the lamp is an old rotor, which is part of the braking system in a car. I attached a piece of wood to the rotor that allowed the muffler to be mounted. The LEDs had to sit in just the right spots inside the lamp. I used 5 pieces of 1/8" welding rod cut at the right heights to mount the LEDs. The leads were soldered together and to a toggle switch also added was a female adapter to a 9V wall-wart style power supply.

The LEDs use very little power, by my estimates the lamp will cost around $5 a year to leave on 24 hours a day.



Completed June 20, 2003.