Fettastic
Active Hunter
Hey Team!
As most members here can agree when making a full out Boba Fett, Boba tends to be on the brain all the time and you start seeing things in everyday life and think..."Hey, I can use that for my Boba Fett!" Such is the case with this thread. My most recent project for my Boba has been working on the gauntlets. I recently moved and have been unpacking/moving personal items around the new house. I discovered that I had 3 of these cheap lamps and was trying to find a use for them when it hit me!!! I noticed the switches on these lamps had a familiar resemblance to something I had been looking at on my computer over and over! Yes, Dental files! So I took one off and compared it next to my man of war gauntlets that had nubs where the dental files are suppose to be. Amazingly enough, the diameter of these switches and the nubs were almost identical. Originally at this time I was just going to paint the nubs and maybe draw in/use an exacto knife to make grooves to resemble dental files, and I had just finished painting the piece they attach to when I discovered this. So long story not so short, I decided there was plenty of grip on the switch to cut a portion off as dental files and still retain the usefulness of the switch for the floor lamp. So I thought...why not? Done! I had justified repurposing the switches while still retaining the functionality of these floor lamps. I immediately started on the project.
This is the lamp. Mainstays Floor lamp at Walmart for $15
Here is the switch. I thought it was plastic until I unscrewed it. It's actually metal!
Using a dremel and the flat grinding blade, I marked the depth I wanted to cut with a sharpie and cut into the switch.
Be sure to use gloves because after grinding, these babies get super hot!
See! Still plenty enough to grip! Still good.
I continued to grind down the portion that was just cut to level it and smooth out any burrs.
Pretty close!
Then I cut off the nubs and drilled into the center of each base to create a cavern for the JB weld to seep into and allow a better bond.
Very carefully I grinders down the remaining base of the nub to allow flush seating the the lamp switch/dental file replica.
Normally I would do this type of work before painting but since this was a spontaneous finding, I decided to try and do my
best not to screw up the paint job knowing full well I would need to apply touch up paint at the end.
Just painted the last switch red and left the first one with its original silver/metal color.
Some touch up done.
This turned out very well in my opinion for being un-planned and only taking approximately 30 minutes. The metal lamp switches sat and bonded really well! I hope this was amuzing!
As most members here can agree when making a full out Boba Fett, Boba tends to be on the brain all the time and you start seeing things in everyday life and think..."Hey, I can use that for my Boba Fett!" Such is the case with this thread. My most recent project for my Boba has been working on the gauntlets. I recently moved and have been unpacking/moving personal items around the new house. I discovered that I had 3 of these cheap lamps and was trying to find a use for them when it hit me!!! I noticed the switches on these lamps had a familiar resemblance to something I had been looking at on my computer over and over! Yes, Dental files! So I took one off and compared it next to my man of war gauntlets that had nubs where the dental files are suppose to be. Amazingly enough, the diameter of these switches and the nubs were almost identical. Originally at this time I was just going to paint the nubs and maybe draw in/use an exacto knife to make grooves to resemble dental files, and I had just finished painting the piece they attach to when I discovered this. So long story not so short, I decided there was plenty of grip on the switch to cut a portion off as dental files and still retain the usefulness of the switch for the floor lamp. So I thought...why not? Done! I had justified repurposing the switches while still retaining the functionality of these floor lamps. I immediately started on the project.
This is the lamp. Mainstays Floor lamp at Walmart for $15
Here is the switch. I thought it was plastic until I unscrewed it. It's actually metal!
Using a dremel and the flat grinding blade, I marked the depth I wanted to cut with a sharpie and cut into the switch.
Be sure to use gloves because after grinding, these babies get super hot!
See! Still plenty enough to grip! Still good.
I continued to grind down the portion that was just cut to level it and smooth out any burrs.
Pretty close!
Then I cut off the nubs and drilled into the center of each base to create a cavern for the JB weld to seep into and allow a better bond.
Very carefully I grinders down the remaining base of the nub to allow flush seating the the lamp switch/dental file replica.
Normally I would do this type of work before painting but since this was a spontaneous finding, I decided to try and do my
best not to screw up the paint job knowing full well I would need to apply touch up paint at the end.
Just painted the last switch red and left the first one with its original silver/metal color.
Some touch up done.
This turned out very well in my opinion for being un-planned and only taking approximately 30 minutes. The metal lamp switches sat and bonded really well! I hope this was amuzing!
Last edited by a moderator:
