The Steampunk Lamp

Blaze has given me another challenge. He enjoyed his airship pirate costume so much for Halloween, that he has now asked for an airship pirate themed birthday.

I decided that for his big gift, I would make him a footboard for his bed ( he currently has neither a footboard nor headboard) and I would make it look like the control panel of a generic steampunk-type vehicle. Blaze has a very small bedroom, so a bed that includes activities is a good way to fit playthings into the space. I want the control panel to be a non-specific vehicle, because that frees up Blaze's imagination to make it whatever he wants ( airship, submarine, rocket ship, boat, something I've never heard of before...).

So far, I have finished only one small part of the footboard, the lamp/vehicle power source.

We started with a fun trip to SkyCraft in Orlando. SkyCraft does have an on-line store at http://skycraftsurplus.com/, but it's not as fun as wandering through the store, finding things you had never thought of, or spending an hour going through boxes of hundreds of gauges.

Here's what we came away with:


The other parts I used for the lamp were a plasma light that was on sale for 25% off at Spencers:


and a kitchen timer that was purchased at Pier One and then repainted. The time will be used to put limits on Blaze's video game playing.


I then built a box:


The wood stain is Minwax Red Mahogany 225, which I really like because of its rich color, especially when matched with the shiny brass and gold.


The colored glass cover over the light bulb was part of a candle holder:


The brass trim, that covers the seams between boards is brass tape found in the scrapbook section of the craft store: