Gothic Glow: Steampunk Lighting for your Home

Reader Barry Berman recently wrote to me. Inspired by the post on Mad Scientist lamps (mine is still in progress, the gods of procrastination and interruption have gotten in the way...) he decided to build one out of parts he had laying around. He showed it off to his coworkers, they encouraged him to build more and make them available for sale... So here they are!

Gothic Glow has models in 2, 6 or 12 bulbs, available in limited quantities.



This is definitely a labor of love for Barry:

I ... scrape, grind and sand portions of the box to have rounded edges, and so the parts fit inside. I buy the brass plate, cut all the plates by hand, and hand stamp a drilling pattern for the lamps and screws. Afterwards, I stain the boxes with two different stains, one red and one brown. Then I electrolytically etch the brass using the toner transfer method, before doing the final assembly and hooking up all the parts.


The skull dimmer is a knob made for guitars by Q-Parts. I've been experimenting with making my own knobs though too. And being the crazy person I am, I'm melting the brass pouring them into bat shaped molds. You have no idea how cool molten metal is!

I think we'll hear more from Barry, since he's since started on other steampunk projects like electric violins and phonograph players and will add them to gothic glow if there is enough interest. (And molten brass! How great would that be -- how about doing a line of gear shaped knobs for projects like this, or drawers or cabinets, Barry?)

Are you working on anything appropriate for a steampunk home? If so, let me know -- I'd love to feature more project like this one. Have skills but no inspiration? A while back I suggested (space) ships in a bottle or plates with steampunk diagrams on them (kilned or decoupage...).