Bill had an old ship’s search light that he went to great expense to have professionally polished back to its original glory. Then it was packed away waiting for it’s next assignment. He had been watching me make several lights for his wife and one day asked if I could make a lamp, for him, out of his beautiful search light. He had very specific intentions for his new lamp. It was to serve double duty as a lamp by his chair and a search/signal light for the deck of their waterfront cabin in Canada.

The first thing I had to do was re-wire and re-lamp the fixture. I created a stand that would let him swivel it 360 degrees and remove it to use as a hand held light when he was out on the cabin deck. It had to be dimmable for its lamp function and had to be switchable for its signal function. I achieved this by wiring an inline, on/off switch to the cord. I made a custom, in-line dimmer box that was installed near the other switch. If you turned the dimmer up all the way, it could be used as a signal light by turning the light on and off as needed. It worked very well and Bill was very happy. In the stand, it stood 55” tall and could be tipped down to act as a chair side reading lamp. The base was a 10" disc of spaulted maple with an 8" Paperstone disc on top to give the legs more stability. There were a bunch of blind holes drilled in the wooden base that were filled with shot and taped over. The Paperstone cap covered all the shot holes.