Skull Lampshade

Hello everyone,

In this instructables, we try to make a lampshade which has a souvenir. I used to my old friend's headskull and his tibia. Inthis project you need these skills;

• epoxy covering
• wood working
• soldering
• basic electronic

Also you need these tools;

• a wood saw or lathe
• tooth brush (old one should be preffer)
• 12VDC Amber Led (whatever you want I prefered 3000K)
• 1 mm cable
• soldering machine
• 100ml epoxy
• bleach
• bucket
• 12VDC power supply
• dimmer or on/off switch

Firstly, you should to be sure for the all bones dried. If they had some organic texture you should clean with some worms or bees you can do this project on summer times. you know, in summer times, all bugs can help you for your cleaning work and with this method, your lampshade's lifetime is getting as more then other cleaning methods.

Ok, lets contuniue. If you are sure about all parts dry you can wash your parts for your lampshade head. Now, you full with water to your bucket nearly 4 lt and add 100ml HCL acid (bleach). Stand your all bone parts in the bucket and wait minimum 48 hours. If some bugs or bacterias in the bones, in HCL all things will be kill and solved in solution.

After 48 hours, you should wash your parts with clean and flow water nearly 20 minutes. After washing you put your bones for drying with sun light. Dont use any dryer or towel.

In this step we will be combine our bones, and we need epoxy in this part. When before start this step you should to prepare your epoxy and whatever you needs. You should be fast because of drying risk of your epoxy.

First step is combining of skull and jaw bones. I used a dog skull for my project. The dogs has 2 part of their jaws. So, we need agglutination the jaw parts but, you should to be careful when you do it. Because, the anterior jaw has a spesific angle between to 2 parts. You can use skull part for determine the angle of jaws. When you combine your parts with your hand and if it looks good you can stick together with your epoxy from jaws front area.

Second step is combined of collect jaws and skull. When your first step's epoxy get dried, you can pass to this step. This step is easier then first step, you need combine your parts with your hand and when it looks good, you can stick with epoxy the contact areas of skull and jaw's top.

Third step is combined head and tibia bones. When your head is get compleatly dried, you can stick with shin bone and skull.

In this part, we will prepare to our base part of lampshade. We need a piece of wood which has e cylindrical geometry. You can cut a log which are straight one for this part. I prefered a piece which has 20-22cm diameter and 4cm height sizes. You can prefer to any size.

When after cut the wood which has the good sizes, you need to make a cable holes. Use 5mm diameter wood drill bit for cable holes. Make a marking your drill bit from the pointed tip 3/4 times of your wood's width. For example, if you have a 5cm width you will be marked on 3,75mm on your drill bit. Then, you lay the cables. If you do not want your cables to appear in all lampshades, you can pass the cables through by drilling holes in the joints of the bone you use as the elevation.

After laying your cables to the whole system, place your 3 pieces of strip LEDs of 5, 8 and 10 cm lengths that you will use for lighting into the brain, upper palate and nasal canals. Just stick the LED that you will place on the upper jaw. Do not forget to solder the wires before gluing the LEDs.
It is recommended to lay your LEDs in the following order; Instead of 5 cm brain, 8 cm nasal canal and 10 cm upper jaw can be placed.

At this step the whole lamp arrangement should be finished. We will now focus solely on aesthetic concerns and treat visual problems.

At this stage, excess epoxy can be used to prevent deformation of the wooden base. For this, the epoxy can be prepared and applied to the wooden surface with a brush, or it can be poured completely and dried. Excess bone burrs can be sanded and you can use epoxy or polish for a brighter appearance.

That's all! You made it!

You can contact me for any problem you have about the project! If you liked the project, please do not forget to like and share!