Lamp Jack

Look into the Light

A couple of weeks ago you all read the story of my dad falling off a cliff and later seeing a UFO. In that story you met Reinhold, my Dad’s paternal grandfather. Reinhold had many other stories about UFOs. Here’s how I heard the story.

Back in the 1950s Reinhold was driving in Kearney, Nebraska. His car broke down and his watch stopped. He got out of his car to go try to find help and he saw some kind of light through some trees. He guessed that a farmer was blasting some stumps. He went toward the light.

He encountered some people with a cigar shaped ship. These visitors looked human. They invited (I don’t think coerced) him on the ship. I never heard what they discussed, but it was definitely a positive message.

Later on, they visited Reinhold a few more times. Eventually he learned enough from them that he could profit from his knowledge. They told him of a mine of special crystals. These crystals could cure cancer! He just needed funding. A pittance for such a life-saving material. He got a couple widows to give him something like twenty thousand dollars each.¹

This is when the FBI gets involved. Reinhold was going to share their secrets and he had to be shut down. He’s sent to federal prison.

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Early on in my woodworking journey I made a bunch of tools; most are documented in this series of articles. Many, maybe even most, of those tools have ended up annoying to use, so annoying that I regret making the projects. Each project has subtle nuances that are important to the function of the tool. I have not found a way to clearly understand what those nuances are without just making the tool, using the tool, learning from your mistakes, and trying again.

Every now and then you get lucky and a tool is so simple or useful enough that even when you get it a little wrong, you are delighted with what you built and use it on a regular basis. For me these are:

• Try-square

• Workbench (and especially my amateurish vise)

• Toolchest

• Mallet

Aside from the mallet, all of these are projects I followed traditional patterns faithfully. I believe that this is what made them turn out so well. Other projects I have either diverged from the plans (either out of hubris or simply lack of skill) or I have followed some modern plan. Making your own tools is empowering and fun, but it needs to be done with care.

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This project was short, sweet, and immediately useful. I’ve seen two or three Lamp Jacks (I really don’t know the actual term, I made it up) here and there. At it’s most basic it is:

• An architect’s lamp

• A base that the lamp mounts into

• A wooden dowel embedded into the base that fits into your holdfast or dog holes

  

I used a thick scrap of cherry I had for the base. It needs to be thick enough to take the lamp stem and also the dowel. I think the dowel on mine is centered, but the lamp slot is about an inch offset from the center.

After sawing the base to size, I bored a hole for the lamp to fit in, and another hole to glue the dowel into. Finally, I made the dowel. I have made a lot of dowels at this point and I usually shave them to size with planes. I think the right tool for the job would be a spoke shave but I did not have one that worked well at the time, but I do now.

Finally, I put glue on the dowel and embedded it into the base. The whole thing was ready to use later that day, and at this point I don’t know how I was able to do any work before I had the lamp. It’s so helpful for getting more light!

Tips

If you make this project (and I suggest you do, it’s so useful) here are a few tips that I think will help you:

• Pick a good architect’s lamp. I got an IKEA one and while it’s acceptable I’m not thrilled with it. I wish I could give clearer suggestions here.

• Shaving dowels is easy but it does take patience. Make a “dowel gauge.” Start by ripping a piece that’s about the right size. For 1” diameters you should rip a piece 1” wide. If you have one use a scrub plane to get the corners off quickly. After that use whatever plane you want. I usually use my block plane but a jack plane works too. You may need to reverse the dowel to avoid tearout. Your eye can see round but not as well as your fingers can feel it.

• I didn’t do anything special to make sure that the holes were exactly perpendicular to the face and it’s close enough.

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I’ve heard Reinhold’s story from a lot of angles. My grandmother (his daughter-in-law) believed that the first time he saw UFOs he was truly convinced and that his message was hopeful.

My dad was close to Reinhold. He had a suitcase of a lot of Reinhold’s UFO papers. These were pamphlets, photos, illustrations, notes, etc etc. At some point in the late 1970s someone from the airforce came to my dad and asked if he had any of the UFO stuff, but my dad said no. Dad was afraid they would take it away. I always found this the most compelling evidence that something actually happened…

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Merry Christmas!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of articles! I enjoyed writing them; I started in January. All of the stories included are true, though of course more could be said about all of them. Thanks goes to the folks I reached out to for review of the stories. I’m happy for the extra detail and accuracy that I got from your feedback.

This final story is much more accessible than the rest though. You can learn more about my great grandpa Reinhold on Wikipedia, if you’re interested. But really, if you want to fully understand the story above, read this article by Curt Collins. It raises the hair on the back of my neck still.

From now on the publication schedule will be closer to once or twice a month, rather than daily. Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, or whatever (if any) holiday you happen to celebrate.

1. This seems like a good time to point out that you can optionally pay for this substack, though there is no $20,000 tier. And anyway it would be closer to $200,000 with inflation.