Taliesin Lamp II

This lamp was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1925 to be a furniture piece in his home, hence the name "Taliesin Lamp." He designed 2 lamps with this style, one a floor lamp, the other a table lamp (Taliesin Lamp III).

I decided to build this lamp because we were suppose to build something that related to our thesis. I used a prairie style design in my thesis and this lamp uses those same design techniques.

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Unlike the original lamp, this lamp was built with LED strip lighting instead of 10 individual 25 watt bulbs. These LED's come with a remote which allows the user to change the color of the lamp as well as its brightness.

Step 1 - Lamp Post

The first step was to make the vertical post that holds everything else together. Since I had to run wiring through it, there had to be a hole large enough for it to fit. The height of the lamp post is 6'-8" with a width of 1-3/4". I began by ripping 4 boards to the desired width while keeping the length a few inches longer to be cut down later. I didn't want to nail any of these pieces together so instead I hand-routed the wider pieces so the smaller ones would fit inside of them. Once everything was routed I glued all 4 sides together, clamped them, and let it dry. After the post was dry I cut it to length and ran it through the planer to get rid of any excess glue.

Step 2 - Light Boxes

The next piece I made was the light box. These boxes again are all glued together and fit on the post by sliding on the small blocks (Fig. 4) that are attached to the side of the post. There are 10 of these boxes from which the LED lights will be contained.

Step 3 - Reflective Panels

Another element in this lamp is the 1/4" plywood panel that is located above each light box. These panels add another horizontal element to the lamp as well as an object for the light to reflect off of. Although I was unsure how the panels fit on the original lamp, either permanently or removable, I decided to create a notch in the post for them to slide into (Fig. 4). This will allow them to be removed if needed and it also doesn't allow the panels to slide up and down the post.

Open

Closed

Open

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Fig. 4

Wiring everything was definitely the hardest and most time consuming part of the process. I spliced 120 wires and crimped 88 wire ends together. The full set of wires strech the length of the lamp post with 10 LED strip connections (1 connection every 7"). Once I had all of the wires crimped together it was time to run it through the post. To do this I ran a wire from the bottom of the lamp to the top. I used this wire to tie around the other set of wires and then pulled them through the post.

Step 4 - Wiring

The last step in finishing this lamp was staining the wood and putting a protective coat on top of it. I used a cherry stain and three coats of glossy polyurethane. Between coats I used steel wool to keep the surfaces smooth. The glossy finish allows the light to reflect off the wood and brighten up more area.

Step 5 - Finishing

Built 5/28/15 @ 6:38 pm

Updated 6/14/15 @ 3:36 pm