Gear Acres at Top of the Hill: Concrete Solar Lamp

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Concrete Solar Lamp

I just finished sending in my entry for the Quikrete 1 Bag Wonder contest. I really enjoyed the process and because of this project I now have several other ideas.

I chose to make a solar lamp using only concrete, a solar light, and items found around the house to make the molds to form the concrete lamp. It took me a while to find something to form the shade but when I saw the old stainless bowl in the barn loft the light bulb went off and I was now ready to mix some concrete.

The stainless bowl was perfect but I needed to make a hole in the top of the shade to hold the top portion of the solar light. I used a small paint can hot glued to what would be the top of the lamp.

The mix that I made was stiffer than normal because I needed it to stand on it's own after a short period of time. I kept pressing and forming until it set up. I left it alone until the next day when I flipped the bowl over and tapped with a small hammer. It easily came out because I sprayed the inside of the bowl with coconut oil.

I sanded the edges of the shade before the concrete was fully hard. The sand paper I used was a medium grit and just took off the sharp edges and slightly rounded the edges, too.

I used PVC pipe to form the body of the lamp and used old throw away food containers to form the two rounds. The rounds were brushed while under running water to expose the aggregate so that the lamp had two textures. The rounds were heavily textured and the body of the lamp was very smooth.

Assembly went as followed.....bottom of lamp was a round, then the body of the lamp, then the round with a hole in the center, followed by the bottom portion of the solar light including the stake, then the shade set on top of the glass portion of the shade, and finally the top of the solar light was set into the center hole of the shade. Eventually the pieces will be glued together with landscaping adhesive. The lamp is steady without it but better safe than sorry. I would hate for someone to accidentally bump into it and have it fall on a toe.