Recently I had to replace the hot water heater in our house. Thankfully it was a slow leak from the bottom so major catastrophe. While I was working on it I kept looking around at the pile of parts I have collected from various plumbing projects.

Hey why not one of those pipe lamps one sees all over the place these days. Why not. I was able to use about 90% of what I had. I had to purchase a length of 1/2″ copper tubing for the arms, 3/4″ to 1/2″ threaded adapter, and the switch for the faucet. I used this Instrucable for the faucet switch.

Even though I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants on this one, I start off by laying things out to get a general idea of where I am heading.

The threaded parts are put together. There wasn’t a way to tighten them all the way up and be in the right directions. As such I took a spot of super glue to the threads. To date it is holding up well. And as seen in the upper right-hand corner I am dry fitting the sleeved parts before sweating them.

And the legs are together and sweated.

The 90% are added to the ends. I really need to cut short sections of copper pipe for the feet. They need to be raised 1/16″ to have the base at true level. I was tired at the time and didn’t fuss with that part. It will be done before it is put at it resting place.

And here is the base of the lamp.

Switch and lamp next. I am still working out how I want the lamp part to flow, this is turing out to be a bit of a pain for me – it just doesn’t look right yet. Hence no pictures. I have a 45 and 2 90’s, plus a short section of already sleeved pipe to hold the light fixture.

I will update this when it is complete. For now I have other projects to attend to. This one was one that hit me one day replacing a hot water heater at noon and made it this far by 2:30am. The tale will continue.