Help finding a Puffer / Blowfish lamp

I'm looking to find the final product of a hanging Blowfish Lamp.

I have found the fish alone and as a standing lamp version. I'm looking for the type that hangs and you can add or change the bulb. Like in a bar. The size I'm looking for is not huge but big enough to fit a standard bulb in it - UNLESS they usually use christmas or night lite size bulbs.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Most of the one's I've seen take a nightlight bulb.

You can find several sizes at Oceaninc Arts in Whittier, CA. Find their info in the locating tiki forum. I'm sure they'd be happy to ship one your way.

Aloha

He speaks the truth! I was at Oceanic Arts just today. They have many, in several sizes - and most are the hanging kind you seek. I'm sure they ship, but I would imagine that those babies are extra fragile!!

I think cheekytiki had them as coning soon on their web site, perhaps they could steer you in the right direction.
http://www.cheekytiki.com

cheers
Bob

[ Edited by: Bobby Peru on 2005-03-30 20:15 ]

Yes, they are over sized. It sucks. You mail 2 pounds of nothing and it costs $20!

You have to have a small bulb in them. Christmas light size. They would burn up and just look like crap with anything bigger. You aslo would not be able to install a large bulb easily.

On 2005-03-30 19:49, PapeToaTane wrote:
I would imagine that those babies are extra fragile!!

Au contraire! Pufferfish spines are extremely strong and needle sharp! And painful...

I've got a number of puffer lamps, and they all take C7 Nightlight/Christmas light bulbs. It's just not a whole lotta fun changin' the bulbs. (see 'painful' above)

Here's a related thread with some (hopefully) useful info.

Doctor Z
Mix-maestro of the Castaway Lounge & Casino,
Redondo Beach, CA

[ Edited by: Doctor Z on 2005-03-31 06:55 ]

On 2005-03-31 06:51, Doctor Z wrote:

On 2005-03-30 19:49, PapeToaTane wrote:
I would imagine that those babies are extra fragile!!

Au contraire! Pufferfish spines are extremely strong and needle sharp! And painful...

Ah. I was thinking more of the thin, dried, stretched-out body/skin. Not true? I don't believe I've ever handled one, in our out of the water, because the spines are...well.... "extremely strong, needle-sharp and painful!" 8)

You can always opt to make one rather than buy it too. Its a pretty easy project, and then the puffer will have that much more value to you.

All you need to do it get the fish (ebay, internet, local shell store) pick a size you like. The round body part should be big enough to hold a 7 watt night light. You could always go bigger or smaller if you wanted, but then you'll have to adjust the light accordingly.

The fish will be stuffed with a whole ton of compressed "cotton". You'll be amazed at how much of this stuff comes out, and yes, thats whats next, you need to get the cotton out.

Start by making a cutting a small (size of a quarter) hole in the top of the fish. This is where your light will eventually go in, so keep that in mind when choosing location (kind of in the middle if you can).

Now, get all that stuff out of him!! I used needle nosed pliers for most of this, but you'll need something longer when you get to the bottom (medical forceps work well).

Once he's cleaned out, he's ready for illumination. I got my light from one of those Dept 56 Christmas Houses (my mom had an extra one, but I bet you can one anyplace they sell dept 56 stuff). It has cord, bulb, on/off toggle, and metal "wings" that hold them in the houses. These wings are key.

You need to make the top hole big enough to fit the bulb, but not much bigger. Then the wings will lock onto the fish when you put the bulb in. It holds so well, I can hang it by the eletrical cord!

Thats it. It looks great, its cheap to make, and was a fun little project. Heres a pic of it at the bar (left side). I can take some close ups if you want.

In fact, I think Im going to make more at some point with different colored lights inside, and some differnt sizes. Good luck!!

http://bargoyle.yafro.com/

I made a tool out of a coat hanger to get the cotton out. I took the straight part of the hanger, cut it off and bent a 90 degree short hook on the end. Stick it in the cotton and twirl it until it builds up (it will wrap around the wire like cotton candy) to about the size of the hole that you cut and then gently pull. Sometimes you can get almost a foot long plug in one pull before it breaks off.

Not all puffers come stuffed, mine was nice and empty.
I've used the Dept. 56 light cords for many lighting projects, they work great!

yeah, easy to make, but yes, Oceanic Arts has them too, in variou sizes.

I hope to be offering them for sale in a month or so. Ready to hang for about $75 plus shipping. Large only. I am still waiting on a shipment from the Philipines, so I have no exact date.

Hey thanks for al lthe helpful Insight - I thought about making one, but did not know about the cotton inside (Which mkaes sense - how else would they be puffed out) and I did know know the exact name for the night light Christmas bulb - Dept 56.
Swank PM if you get em in - I will also invest in some taxidermy and see how it goes. I was not aware the Oceanic shipped stuff - I will check that out too more out curosity than the purchase. I though you could visit and buy on premises, Thanks agian.

Hey sneakyjack,

I knew I had seen a post on all the materials, instructions, etc...

Puffer Lamp

I just bought a large puffer last weekend and will be looking forward to illuminating him this weekend!!!

I also bumped the thread in the Creating Tiki section. Look for "Making a puffer fish lamp"

:tiki:

thanks again. I gots all the pieces but one the - THE FISH its self. I've seen a few on EBay 11 inches and 9 inches and 8 inches startiing around 8 or 9 dollars. Since I usually don't buy fish like these I'm wondering if anyone knows fair market value for the little buggers. It doesn't seem like much - 10 bucks plus shipping on the ebay fish, the cord was a few dollars and I found different 4 colored xmas bulbs at the 99 cent store for 99 cents for all of them. Jawa thanks for moving the post. I'm thinking a Dremel will help cut into the fish when I get him and I'll go from there.

Price? I really only look for the huge ones. 20+ inches. And big ones like that go for $60 on the cheap end. I got lucky and got a huge one for $20. But More like $75 on Ebay is normal. OA price is around $120.

sneakyjack, that price is not too bad for eBay. Where I am, that size runs about $5 + tax...I will have to post a pic of the one I got a couple weekends ago.

The 20" size runs about $40 down here, but I am not sure about eBay. The fish themselves are imported from the Phillipines (as least all the ones I have seen), so you might be about to find some coastal areas that sell nautical themed souvenirs/crap, lol.

On 2005-04-03 19:02, sneakyjack wrote:
thanks again. I gots all the pieces but one the - THE FISH its self. I've seen a few on EBay 11 inches and 9 inches and 8 inches startiing around 8 or 9 dollars. Since I usually don't buy fish like these I'm wondering if anyone knows fair market value for the little buggers. It doesn't seem like much - 10 bucks plus shipping on the ebay fish, the cord was a few dollars and I found different 4 colored xmas bulbs at the 99 cent store for 99 cents for all of them. Jawa thanks for moving the post. I'm thinking a Dremel will help cut into the fish when I get him and I'll go from there.

Get a 7-8" one for under $10 and use it for practice before you spend the bucks on a big fish. Also consider what you're going to use it for. A fish under 10" is a nice little accent piece. I've made a couple of those. I've got a 15" one that I haven't yet cut into and he's pretty good size. A 20" puffer is getting into dining room swag lamp size, awesome if you've got the room but if your tiki bar is small it will dominate the ceiling. Also the porcupine puffer is rounder with all the spines and takes up more space. The other one (dragon puffer?) doesn't have the long spines and is more svelt. I guess a 20+" dragon puffer would be more versatile than a 20+" porcupine which would be like having a medicine ball hanging from the ceiling. If it ever fell on someone it would be a Hammer horror movie come to life.

I'd start with smaller ones and work up, but that's me.

All my babble would make more sense with a pic.

This is a 10" porcupine puffer next to a 15" dragon puffer.

The measurement is from nose to tail. You can see that the porcupine is mostly body with just a little bit of tail while the dragon has the much longer tail. Plus all the spines on the porcupine (which will get longer with a bigger fish) make the lamp even larger overall and more spherical.

The porcupine above is 10" nose to tail and his height, spine tip to spine tip is about 7". The dragon is 15" nose to tail but the height at the highest point is 4.5".

So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you get a large porcupine puffer it's going to be a REALLY big lamp. I guess a 20+" or even 30+" dragon puffer would still be less intimidating (given the ratio of my fish, a 30" dragon puffer would be about 9" tall whereas a 30" porcupine would be about 21" tall and a lawsuit waiting to happen, unless you have a VERY tall ceiling). Ahh, you get the idea. Any more time on this subject and I'll be dreaming about rogue fugu puffer zombies in my sleep. :wink:

The fun really begins when you stuff it into a glass fishing float. We bought the smallest one at OA (about 39.95 with light attached for a 9" puffer), cut the top off a 12" vintage float and stuffed it in.......ouch!

On 2005-04-04 18:43, bongofury wrote:
The fun really begins when you stuff it into a glass fishing float. We bought the smallest one at OA (about 39.95 with light attached for a 9" puffer), cut the top off a 12" vintage float and stuffed it in.......ouch!

Let's see the pics!

On 2005-04-04 18:43, bongofury wrote:
The fun really begins when you stuff it into a glass fishing float. We bought the smallest one at OA (about 39.95 with light attached for a 9" puffer), cut the top off a 12" vintage float and stuffed it in.......ouch!

I want one!

I'd even consider a mass-produced injection-molded fascimile by Shag. (hint.. hint..)

Would it be possible for some enterprising aquarist to drill a small hole in a large float and grow a fish in the float? (Whoops, I think that's PETA knocking at my door...)

I like the ones with spines the best, but I never thought of what might happen if one did fall from a tiki bar ceiling.

Raffertiki should to do a comic on that one!

See this thread for the Puffer Lamp I made.

Only cost $35 for the fish at the swap meet, Mine was clean on the inside, no stuffing.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2807&forum=5

So the deed is done
for about 35 dollars and about 2 hours of time.

I'll try to post pics but heres what I learned:

Those things are very stuffed - like lots of cotton like substance!
They stink when you cut em - wear glasses and a bandana - glasses for flyin stuff and bandana to cover up the stink. - It smelled like when the dentist drills teeth - I used a Dremel that worked well.
The hole needs to be big enough to for the bulb too! - so cut small and go bigger slowly.
be careful if holding the tail - its sorta flimisy or easy to break.
A trick that helped me was putting the fish on Bubble wrap to keep it safe as well as stable.
Overall it was easy and sorta fun after seeing the final product.

My 11 inch puffer cost $28 with shipping. Bulbs were 1$ for 4 different colors ( i chose red on this one - but hope to make another one or two to use the blue and green bulbs). the cord was $4.

Good fun try it. - I'll see if I can post up the pics - but it looks like the one in the link bought for $35 at a swap meet with the gold chain.

I'm about to attempt to make a puffer-inside-glass-float hanging lamp. I have a nice large glass float and gonna put a small puffer inside with the light inside the puffer. Anyone done this before? I figure I'm needin' a diamond cutting wheel for my Dremel.

Puffer fish + bubblewrap sounds like it would be funny!

Better late than never..........

Looks better at night.......I used a Makita grinder with a Diamond blade.....dry.....I scored a line in it about 1/4 way through. Then dug in.....slowly......wants to send out a running crack (insert joke here).....stil hard to see the crack after putting the rope back on. I would try a wet saw next time.........

On 2005-04-29 21:44, bongofury wrote:
Better late than never..........

How big a hole did you cut to put in the puffer? A pic from above would be cool. Looks great!

Hi Kono.....

Measured the puffer side to side, cut the hole about 1/2" smaller about 6" diameter. Then pushed it in head first, gave it a turn, put the rope back on and ........puffer in a float.

Bongofury,
That's exactly what I'm wanting to do! Looks great! I picked up some diamond cutting wheels last weekend. Can't wait!