Windchime from an Old Lamp

The arts and crafts just keep coming! I recently had this inspiring thought pop into my head. “Why not turn that old lamp that has been standing in the livingroom into a windchime!” Random, huh? It may have been seeded by my Dad who recently made a set of windchimes.

That evening, I proceeded to disassemble an old unrepairable halogen light and turn it into a windchime. Again, being environmentally conscience, I tried using only materials that I had on hand.

Here the lamp is being taken apart. Drawn, quartered and awaiting rebirth as a noisy, clanky windchime!

Next was to find the point along the tubes where to hang them. You have to find the nodes of the tubes, the points where the standing wave are zero. In other words, the point on the tubes where there is no vibration when you strike it. Suspending the tubes at this point won’t dull the sound. You can do some measuring and funky math to find the nodes, but I’m lazy and instead just held the tubes by my fingers and twacked the tube. I adjusted where I held the tube until it rang the loudest.

Here I’ve taped where I’ll punch a hole into the tube. A hammer and nail are a great combo for punching holes into things.

The finished tubes. Notice the wire protruding out of the bottom-most tube. Fishing wire is attached to the wire on the inside of the tube so the tube is suspended on the inside.

I used some soft wire to secure the tubes and strung some cheap fishing wire to suspend the tubes on what used to be the topmost part of the lamp. Looks like a witch’s hat.

A clapper made out of two CD discs and a paddle made out of an old laundry detergent bottle.

It took two nights to make, but it turned out great! Not only does it look cool, it sounds just wonderful!

Just hope it’s not too loud for the neighbors. Check out the video below to see this windchime in action!