Making a spider-lamp out of 8 cheap Ikea anglepoise knockoffs

Budapest designer Petra Nikoletti bought eight Ikea Forsa lamps and a salad bowl and had a locksmith precision fit them into a "spider lamp": "I bought 8 Ikea FORSÅ table lamp, and only used the arms and the heads. A custom-made cylinder is holding them and a Blanda Blank Serving Bowl (20 cm, painted black) is hiding the wires. A black hollow shaft is connecting the lamp to the ceiling, the cover at the end is also a Blanda Blank, but the smallest one."

I'm a bit confused about the locksmith part -- is that a translation error, or are locksmiths really an untapped source of high-quality machining and enamelling?

Spider lamp from FORSÅ

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: design • Gadgets • housewares • hungary • makers

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Dirac

“I’m a bit confused about the locksmith part”
Don’t know hungarian but at least in German:- “Schlosser”=lit. “locksmith” actually means “metalworker”
papajude

Is this art or recycling gone mad?
pkpk

That looks like… 8 cheap ikea lamps stuck together.
lorq

“So, Sandman, you say you’d like to change your appearance…?”
ROSSINDETROIT

I like this idea. Familiar devices in a different context. And it has functional flexibility. The actual fabrication, or a similar arrangement, should be within the capabilities of anyone who can drill a hole without a trip to the emergency room. Nothing high precision here.
http://twitter.com/jmatthewjacob J. Matthew Jacob

It’s actually a knockoff of a more expensive piece http://www.moooi.com/producten/103-dear-ingo.html . I’ve thought about doing the same thing, but it really needs high ceilings and a large room (imho).
timquinn

In six months they will all be hanging straight down. More is not always merrier.
Marco Antonio Morales

Comes from a long line of clever ikea hackers :) http://www.ikeahackers.net/
http://www.peterbagge.com/ Buddy Bradley

hmm the original Hungarian doesn’t seem to say anything about a locksmith (“lakatos”) so I assume there must be some sort of error in your translated version!
voiceinthedistance

Hmm. Bing translates it as a proctologist that did the adaptation.
Birdseed

No locksmith in the original, there’s a link to the furniture maker (Alkemista) who helped her. As to whether locksmiths have the expertise to precision-drill and enamel, hell yeah. My friend had a locksmiths’ apprenticeship and they made all sorts of crazy miniature stuff.