The Orbit Lamp

Took my first stab at giving one of my lamp ideas a little more personality. With all these gears and shafts that I’ve accumulated over the years I thought there had to be more of a purpose for them than just static parts to be welded to one another. So from this idea came the Orbit lamp.

Originally wanting to motorize it somehow, I quickly decided to learn to walk first before surfing so a manual version was agreed upon. Assembled from (you guessed it) an assortment of Porsche race car parts, I thought it might be slick if I could get the gears to mesh and move around the lamp. But from the moment I accomplished this, it dawned on me that no one would really give a rat’s backside for a lamp that had just a few gears moving around it. I mean for what reason, right?

That’s when the shade idea came in. You know those times when you just wanna relax and maybe take a quick nap in your lazy boy, but someone in the chair next to you wants to read? Well why not have two rotating arms with an attached shade of sorts? In this case a license plate, engineered with a simple spring tension system below the gear drive to keep the plate in it’s assigned place and Viola! you now have the Orbit Lamp.

It’s targeted at the two chair/one table set up that’s so predominant in your typical Archie and Edith household. The best of both worlds, all with a swivel of a shade. This build was a lot of fun and I feel that I’m going to take it in many directions. And I’m always open for ideas and suggestions from you out there also. There’s a world of creativity in the minds of all of you I’m sure of it. So feel free to contact us with any suggestions on alternate shade materials, or if you’d like something commissioned just to your taste.