Post #309685 by Mai Tai on Tue, May 29, 2007 10:13 PM

Well, we made it back from Southern California in one piece, and with one bitchen' lamp! Every time I look at it, I can't believe that Coco Loco and I built that! Here are some pics of our lamp building exercise last Saturday.

Here's a kit of parts that will be transformed into a lamp.

Frame assembly begins.

The frames start taking their shape fairly quickly.

The electrical lamp parts are the next to go in.

Then we make end caps. Bosko comes up with the idea to cut a hole in the end cap, to let light shine through on the ends. I promptly rip off his idea.

The patterns are then cut out of the tapa cloth.

The first set of panels are glued onto the frame.

After those set up, then the second set of panels are applied.

We wrap a special wire that looks like twine around the brass elecrical nub that sticks out of the top of the lamp, for decorative purposes.

Derek puts the finishing touches on the bamboo pull handle. Careful, that bamboo is hot, and stays hot for a while!

Hey, whatta ya know? We have lamps!!! I don't know who is more proud, Professor Derek, or all of his students?!? Look at all of those smiling faces!!!

Here's how my lamp looks in Derek's James Bond 007 themed bathroom.

We took a break for lunch mid day, while waiting for the first set of panels to set up. Bosko gave a great lecture on lamps. Check out the cool lamp in the forground.

Derek was such a great teacher, and fantastic and gracious host. He was running around keeping a watchful eye on everyone's progress, lending an expert hand when needed - we definitely kept him busy! The class was great, everyone was really enjoying the experience! Coco Loco and I had a great time hangin' out with the Monkeyman just chillin' and talkin' story while waiting for our lamp to dry. If we would have known that our car was going to break down later, we probably would have hung out a little while longer.

Oh, and it was great hangin' with everyone during this lamp building class. Everyone did such a great job, and all of their lamps came out great! I'm sure that Tiki Den would agree that it was definitely worth the drive down from Northern Calif to take this class. Derek, if you ever decide to do something like this again, I'll come down again in a heartbeat! Thanks again, Monkeyman!!! :D