Wood Paper Pendant Swirl Lamp

The idea of this lamp comes from Ezycraft swirl lamp. I wanted a wooden object with more details than the very nice but simple paper strips. I my project, a internal structure is holding 12 thin wood paper strips.

The wood paper strips are thin enough that light can come through. It is still dampening the light too much for this lamp which is intended as a primary light in a room. Floral patterns are cut in every strip to let more light get through.

It is not a great success since the bulb can be seen through and is still dazzling but it was an occasion to test many ideas I had.

The structure is made of 5mm plywood. It had been difficult to cut it in the laser cutter since the wood was not flat. 4mm MDF should be better and PMMA would be even greater since a wooden is not discreet as it cast a shadow on the strips.

When building up the internal structure, be careful with the facing of the slits. It mus be inverted on each end of the structure. I fixed each vertical stick on the 4 discs at a time.

I cut the strips by hand, with a cutter knife. The wood paper comes in a roll and is pretty curved. I used a ruler and fixed the wood to be able to cut it as clean as I could.

I designed and cut a frame in 3mm plywood to be able to cut the patterns into the curved wooden paper strips. The design was not solid enough, it could easily be improved.

There is level difference of 3mm between the top of the frame and the strips to cut. These 3mm could be to much for a laser cutter with a long nozzle that get very close to the material to cut.

When cutting the strips, the curliness of the wood immediately deform the surface ot the strip. The pattern is not always very regularly cut and it needs some manual interventions.

It would probably be disastrous to fix a strip to the lamp in the wrong curve way, so it is important to fix the strips with the curvature in the same direction into the frame (I did the mistake once). Cutting each strip in the laser cutter is a bit long (about 1h15 in my case for the whole 12 strips).

Fixing the strips is quite easy. One side first and the other when the glue is dry. I did almost a 360° turn from a side to the other.

Many improvements are possible. First, it is not necessary to cut the pattern on such an length. Since strips are covering each other at each extremities, it would be enough to cut it only on the central third of the strip’s length.

The superposition of the pattern is also a bit chaotic Gluing thin paper inside the strips would diffuse le light much better, since the bulb is seen directly and dazzle through the cut pattern. Maybe a geometric length-wide pattern would preferable for this kind of lamp.