I love scavenging for goods in my street :)

You see,

soon I'll start working more from home, so its time to make myself a proper office and stop lurking in my "laboratory":

A few days ago, I've found this broken reading lamp while walking with Mufasa:

Its counterweight was broken.

That's it, everything else was just fine.

So I took it home, and start talking with my [also makers] friends. Pretty interesting ideas came up for the counterweight replacement, one even suggested a car's disk brake!

Eventually, I choose a more conventional solution - Using Cement as a counterweight.

To repair this lamp,

I've needed to overcome some challenges:

I don't know how to work with cement.
I've measured the weight needed for supporting the lamps generated moment, and It's more than 5kg!
- As you can see, the original weight is slightly thicker than the lamps aluminum dish. So pouring cement only inside the lamp's dish just won't do.

Right, to work!

Challenge #1 was easy - I have the internet...

For every one cup of Cement I used two cups of sand.
Then I've added some water and stirred.

Much like making Tahini :)

As for Challenge #2, I used the tip a friend gave me:

Use ducktape for making the aluminum dish deeper

As I've mentioned before - I'm new to cement, hence this simple idea just blew my mind!. Also, I've added some rings and nuts for increasing the surface where the cement is expected to stick.

And after pouring the cement:

Then, 24 hours later:

And the final result, TA-DA!

A footer

Picking up things from the street was never about miserly, I love making stuff and learning new things on the way. When I see re-usable garbage on the street, I immediately start thinking about what can be done with it.

That being sed, this lamp cost around 213.03 USD, an amount I think is absurd for a reading lamp.