Kitchen Light Fixtures (part one)

Just so you don't think I've only been doing little side projects and such, here's what I've been up to (amognst other things) this week.

This is the light fixture that was in the kitchen when I moved in. Unbearably ugly. I decided that I was going to make my own because it might be a) slightly cheaper and b) because I can. I wanted something along the industrial/commercial look. Though a high pressure sodium lamp with it's ballast might look truly industrial I'm afraid any one within 10 yards might go blind when it's turned on. So it had to look but not necessarily be industrial.

I bought a bunch (4) of those little clamp on fixtures from everyone's favourite Swedes. And, on the paper you can see a little C-clamp. I bought four of those too. The aim at this point is to bodge up something that might look like theatre lights and then run a pipe across the ceiling to hang them on to.

These are the fixture after removing the clampy bit. The electrical cord was also shortened and that got rid of the inline switch.

The C-clamps after modification. A flat was ground on the upper corner next to the screw and a 10-32 tapped (threaded) hole was drilled in the center of that flat bit. I also took the opportunity to clean up the castings on the grinding wheel. I tried removing the paint with remover and that didn't work so I tried burning it off with the propane torch and apart from turning black it stayed pretty much intact. In the end I tossed them in the fireplace and once they where a good red heat I figured there was no paint left. I ended up painting them flat black.

And here's where I'm at tonight. I removed the ugly (which is yours for the asking by the way) and put in a plug box instead of the round light box that was there. I put up one of the lights to check that everything was fine wiring wize and there we are.