BUILD VIDEO: http://youtu.be/fuLJ51O6ngE
To form the concrete I used a wire wheel on some pine to expose the profile in the grain. The aluminum pieces are held together by brazing, it's a sort of aluminum welding, with a installation process more similar to soldering. The plexiglass is held on with silicone caulking. 2-part masonry epoxy is used to hold the frame to the concrete (except for the top which is attached with silicone in case of maintenance). The concrete was finished with a single coat of 2-part epoxy resin. The lighting used is a RGB LED flood light. Both of these are able to be operated off the same remote.
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This build started like a lot of my builds ... in the dumpster.
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There is another studio next door to me that is a glass blowing shop. Sometimes they will throw away their scrap colored glass, so that's how I was able to find this stuff in the dumpster.
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The main frame is made from aluminum angle and bar stock scraps. I use the junk blade on my table saw to cut these down to size.
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And I cut them to length on with my miter gauge.
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To smooth out the ends, I clamped all the angles together and hit them with the belt sander.
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I attached the aluminum pieces together using brazing. The cinder block was a perfect working surface with the heat.
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I heat up the aluminum pieces until they are hot enough to melt the brazing rod. You fill in the fillet until it's flush with the surface.
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I use a sanding wheel in the angle grinder to sand all the joints flush.
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The base of the lamps are made from cast concrete. I used these pine planks as the casting surface as I wanted to transfer the wood grain pattern to the concrete. To bring out the wood grain, I use a wire wheel in the angle grinder, which grinds off all of the soft material.
