The Brief Create a "feature" light for the dining room. The light should be in context with the prevailing aesthetic (industrial...
The Brief
Create a "feature" light for the dining room. The light should be in context with the prevailing aesthetic (industrial, retro, vintage), be a functional light source for dinner parties (additional lighting was already in place to provide ambient/general lighting) and it should be bold.Raw Recruits
We're only too ready to rise to the challenge of creating a beskope luminaire BUT in this particular brief the room context really dictated something a bit "patinated", a touch "tired" NOT shabby though. We'd also established a re-cycling, re-purposing ethos with reclaimed flooring from a whiskey distillery, lighting from a super-tanker, storage from an aircraft, an old guillotine as a table and chairs hailing from a time when we made things rather than sold services.So with that in mind... and a distant image in our collective unconscious of some unusually aesthetic industrial lights we commenced our search in our favourite location; eBay. We found some dreamers (that's us being kind), people unable to resist typing "barn find" or "super rare" - even when even the most cursory of glances would reveal that there's actually nothing particularly rare about a hi-bay light (although you may just find one in a big barn).
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| Recruit ready for training |
Differentiation Commences
Here's what the typical "person" does when they get that artfully photographed industrial light home. They call the electrician who comes round and sticks a dirty great hook into the nearest joist (you can't hang 35kg off a plastic ceiling rose - well you can but it won't be long before it and a part of the ceiling will be back on terra-firma). They get a bit of chain hang the light from that and then hook the light up with bit of 3 core, round cable that's dwarfed by the light and for the next 10 years hangs at a jaunty angle. It kind of works but isn't there more to this?So this is where we began to divert from that cliché; first we take the whole thing apart, discarding the internal components such as the ballast and then we get all the powder coating removed. Then we take the metallic components to a plating company who apply a coat of nickel before a finish of copper plating. We take the copper plated parts and leave them in the workshop to give them time to "ripen" before coating them with laquer to halt the oxidisation process leaving a refined patination.
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| Textured, patinated, coppery goodness |
We replaced the 400w halide bulb with a large squirrel cage 40W incadescent one (like the one in GEC FLP ES27 OK) and with that our raw recruit has been transformed into something worth hanging from the ceiling.
Finally we replaced all the screws/nuts/bolts with black annodised aluminium equivalents.
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| Copper and black annodised fitting; Nice |
Suspension
Now the truly bespoke part begins, this is where workshop time begins and we consign that image of a dodgy hook, jaunty cable and old chain to the bin. The challenge(s) are:- Overall weight is 35kg - even with spreader plates this would either crack the ceiling immediately or almost certainly within a few months
- Overall weight is 35kg - you don't want it falling off the ceiling it'll hurt itself, you and/or the things it lands on
- The brief calls out specifically for the appearance of the fixture hanging from the ceiling via a single "cord"
Working backwards, because we've looked at this before and had a plan, we chose to use a special kind of hose more normally associated with racing car technology. The hose has a black nylon outer braid making it appear to be just an unusually thick electrical cord. The internals are somewhat more complex; the braid sits over a rubber hose structure that includes an internal stainless steel mesh; it's very strong and designed to work in a harsh environment with high mechanical loadings applied externally and internally. It also has the advantage of being hollow and having a large range of special connectors which are, like the hose, designed for harsh environments and hollow.
So the hose then becomes our single "cord" as well as the suspension mechanism between the light and the ceiling mounting. Being hollow means we can route both the power cable and the "safety" cable through it (more on this).
The safety cable is just a stainless steel wire that is connected to the light internally (so you can't see it, passes up through the hose and is then attached to a joist and NOT to the main mounting system). With this in place a catastrophic failure of the mounting or the hose or the connectors will not result in the light falling down so this then meets requirement number 2.
Now we get to the meat and potatoes; requirement number one - make this thing look like it's hanging from the ceiling. We knew we couldn't do this with spreader plates (we probably could but they would need to be big and this raised issues due to access considerations).
We did know, however, that a ceiling joist would be available BUT that's only part of the story because we know we've got to also get power and a safety cable down to the light so it's not a simple case of attaching something to the bottom of said joist.
In the end we designed a relatively complicated compound ceiling mount - see the picture below (it's worth at least a thousand of our words).
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| Ceiling mount! |
The threaded turning is bolted into the side mounting and then the brass sleeve is rotated clockwise to wind it up the threaded turning pulling the copper ceiling rose tight against the ceiling. So what you end up with is a very strong mounting that externally appears to be "civilised" and creates the illusion that the entire piece is hanging directly from it where as in reality the entire loading is being transferred up to the side mounting which is bolted to the joist.
Installation
The onsite installation definitely fell into the "non-trivial" classification. To install the light we did need access to the ceiling void which (naturally) would need to be from above BUT sadly that would mean lifting some Karndean, a layer of hardboard, some floorboards and to top it all off our measurements revealed that the mounting itself would need to be attached directly to the joist passing directly under the toilet - in summary this, we knew, was going to be the very definition of "fun".The other part of this is that even with all the above there's an equally real challenge; accurately marking this out. We had no desire to pepper the ceiling with “test drillings” and with the final hole size required being 44mm we had to get it right, and right from the start. We aligned the light right to left using a chimney breast as a reference point (when standing in the kitchen zone this alignment is the critical one). For the fore/back alignment things were dictated by the selected joist although we had some “play” available courtesy of some previously created washers.
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| Installation "kit" (side mount not shown) |
Physically installing the side mount was simple but best described as uncomfortable requiring, as it did, double jointed fingers and eye on each thumb. The design of the side mounting meant that we had to be pretty accurate but because of the brass sleeve and ceiling rose quite accurate was really about +/- 20mm which made things much easier than if we’d gone zero tolerance.
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| Safety foremost, you can see the side mounting in the background |
The safety wire was not attached to the side mounting but instead into a separately attached bracket mounted directly to the joist - this created the physical separation/independence from the side mounting we required.
Getting power to the light was, again, relatively simple due to being able to connect to an existing power source nearby. The electrical installation also required the finishing of the industrial switch installation in the dining area. The finishing process was the creation of a turned brass adapter, ceiling ferrule and threading of galavanised conduit. This then provided not only a path for the switching wire but also completed the switch installation and really made the most of the unusual 3-gang switch.
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| Lots of work on a component that'll never be seen but is critical |
At this point we have a ceiling mount installed and the electrical feed completed but we still don’t have the light suspended yet.
The light is really two primary components; a shade and an electrical/mechanical support. The support is a light weight cast aluminium part (although now nickel and copper plated) and the shade is a the special part; a heavy glass component designed specifically to cast the light and to be “self-cleaning”. The shade is also were the weight of the project resided; 30kg or so.
Installing the support component was easy; it was designed to split in to two halves. Mechanical connection to the ceiling mount (via the hose) was to the top half, the converted GS to ES27 mounting was the lower half. There were some important considerations;
- The safety wire needed to be connected to the lower half to address a scenario where the mounting between upper and lower parts fails
- The wiring needed to be longer than the maximum drop that would occur if the safety wire arrested a fall. This would ensure that in the event of a problem the light would not be supported for any period of time by the wiring or tear the wiring out
- Earth connections needed to be made to both halves to ensure a good connection that did not rely on the mechanical fixings
The real challenge with the completion of the installation was the 30kg shade assembly. The shade hangs from a component known as a “gallery” which is secured to the lower half of the support component using three bolts. Lacking any bokoshoko elves I was on my own for this final stage and there’s no way a single person could hold the shade up, align the mounting bolts and secure them.
Fortunately at my disposal were two fabulous Singer stools which thanks to an industrial heritage featured height adjusting screws and with those I was able to jack the shade into position before securing the 3 bolts
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| Not just very cool stools - they're excellent temporary jacks as well |
The Reveal
This is the best part of portfolio or customer work; the finished result just at the very point you show it, turn it on, open it, close it. We chose a large 40w squirrel cage bulb, cleared away the evidence of 4 days of challenging installation work and then threw the switch. Immediately our decisions were vindicated; any doubts we had prior when we had a large hole in the ceiling or were second guessing the decision to “go large” were dispelled. |
| Close, closer, very close |
After a project like this we often discuss what we’d do differently (or even if we’d ever do it again) - we were unanimous in this case that we’d change nothing. We can see how to accommodate additional requirements though; the mounting could include height adjustment of the light for example, the light itself could be used with incandescent or LED sources with the upper component providing enough room for driver circuitry and/or a dimming module
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| Holophane selfie |
We believe that when you read this article and see the results you’ll see what the bokoshoko difference is. This was no hastily conceived and quickly executed project. There’s a level of detail crossing all aspects not just the way the project looks at completion. This is the bokoshoko difference - attention to detail at all stages
