Wabikusa Stand

Hi there,

since I haven´t found any instruction to build a stand for a Wabikusa, I decided to build it myself. Due to some instructions in forums how to improve the lumen of some lamps from a well known Swedish furniture store, I decided to buy all my parts from there and look what I can create with it. I case you wonder how long it will take to build such a stand like mine, I can´t give you a specific duration of how long it will take. It will depend on how good your workshop is equipped and how good you know your tools. It took me about 2 hours from the beginning to the finished stand but I had to figure some things out.

As I said in the introduction before, I decided to buy all my parts from just one furniture store. This made things much easier for me because I just had to go shopping just once. In case you want to buy other parts, you can use this introduction as a guide for the design but you have to figure out how the components will be put together.

Parts list:

1. Lamp: Nävlinge

I used the one with the heavy stand, there is a clampable version as well but I don´t know if the connections are the same (you will see what I mean with that later on)

2. Cutting board: Fascinera

Yes I used a cutting board as wooden base. As you can see in the pictures it turned out as a good decision (at least in my opinion).

3. Felt pads:

I used bigger ones from the hardware store. Those have the big advantage that the stand looks like its levitating but you can use the regular ones or none as well.

First of all: use safety equipment! You will handle with sharp knives or use electric tools which can harm your fingers or eyes!

I used some electrical tools to build this stand but everything I did in this build can be achieved with regular hand tools as well, except from the drill.

Handtools:

1. Cutter knife/ sharp knife

2. Universal pliers

3. Wrench 12mm

4. Screwdriver (flat & phillips)

5. Screw clamps

Electrical tools:

1. Drilling machine (12mm, 7,5mm)

2. Belt sander (optional, a file will give you the same result)

3. Jigsaw (optional, any other handsaw will lead to the same result)

4. Oscillating/vibration saw (I didn´t find any translation for this tool, in german its called "Oszillationssäge", optional)

This lamp consists of 3 main parts. The stand, the "maintube" with the adjustable arm and the LED-Head. The LED-Head is screwed into the maintube and the maintube is screwed into the stand.

Stand:

The cable with the switch just gets plugged into a fast connector which is imbedded into the stand. To reuse the cable you have to disassemble the lamp stand. This might sound difficult, but it isn´t. First step is to remove the filt which is glued onto the bottom of the stand. This exposes the weight and a small cover. After you opened the cover with a small flathead screwdriver you will see the wiring of the connector and a nut which fastens the weight. Then you have to cut the the wires right under the crimp (I didn´t cut the wires, because I had to figure out if the lenght of the wires lasts for what i had in mind, which turned out it does). After this you have to open the nut with a wrench (12mm). You might have to use a second wrench to hold up the other side. If you followed all the steps until now you should have the weights and the stand casing which aren´t used anymore, and the two connectors (one of the cable and one of the maintube). The next step is to cut the connector for the cable out of its case. This was done with the oscillating saw but you can use a small metal saw or might use a sharp knife as well.

LED-Head:

In case you want to change the LED to a Light with more Kelvin I´m afraid to tell you that I didn´t find a way yet to accomplish that. The new design uses a LED which gets connected by a plug connection. So the LED isn´t soldered, which would make things much easier for me. You might are lucky to find someone else who already did this

In this step you can be creative. You don´t have to cut the same contour like mine, just be creative and think of a base which looks best for you. Just use goggles to avoid your eyes getting hurt.

I wanted mine to be round with the back end to be egg-shaped. So I draw a circle and extended it with a kinda unsymmetric contour. But I just roughly cut the wood with a hand saw and then sanded it down to the final contour.

If you are happy with the result then you have to drill the holes for the connectors. Therefore you need a 12mm drill. After you drilled the hole, check it if the connector for the maintube fits. The next step is to drill the hole for the connector of the cable. Therefore you have to fix the base in a vise and then drill a 7.5mm hole on the face side.

You might have to drill/cut out small notches so that the cables don´t get squeezed when you fasten the connector. Always check if all the connectors fit into the holes. Last Step before applying the felt pads and assembling the whole stand is to apply a layer of oil to the wood. I used Teak oil but I think linseed oil would be better.

After the oil soaked in you can start to glue the felt pads onto the bottom of the base. To glue the felt pads onto the wood you have to cut off the nails and grind it down so the surface is flat. I used superglue but you can try to hot glue it as well. If you do so I recommend to glue it before applying the oil.

The last step is to assemble everything together. Little side note I used the feedthrough from the connector of the maintube to fasten the connector but you can use another method as well. To connect the wires I hardly recommend to solder them.