Hasta La Ideas

Over the past four months or so, Aaron Panone (a.k.a. 44RN) has quickly established himself as one of the many creatives who we’re always glad to hear from, consistently producing excellent work for clients, friends and himself. The Somerville, Massachusetts-based engineer/designer first popped up on our radar for his collaboration with Matthew W. Moore. Next, we saw Panone’s 144#47 track chainring side project—designed and produced in the Boston area—which resurfaced as one of John Watson‘s picks for our Ultimate Gift Guide. Panone’s handiwork turned up yet again on Geekhouse Bikes’ Oregon Manifest entry, though he’s moving away from the increasingly saturated cycling market and towards other areas of product design.

Thus, the “Tab Desk Lamp” is only the first of many forthcoming self-initiated projects and explorations from the prolific designer.

For over two years I have been making sketches and designing a series of furnishings. As my interests and experiences expand, the designs have been becoming more complicated and their manufacturing has come to involve a greater number of processes.

Limiting myself more-or-less to the processes/capabilities available in my slowly growing office shop has allowed me to pick a few materials and processes and/or techniques that I am really into, and refocus my designs around them. The drawback of this approach is that it is possible to easily design beyond your capabilities (when you are planning to do all of the manufacturing/fabrication yourself).

The “Tab Desk Lamp” is the designer’s first step in this direction, designed and produced within a short two-week timeframe “as an opportunity to try out a few new techniques without the risk of wasting money on materials, or encountering failure on some of the more complicated projects that I have been planning.” Unlike the 144#47 chainring, for which Panone called on a local machining outfit in Peabody, MA, he notes that “in acting as my own shop, I created manufacturing drawings for each part, and directly followed them during fabrication.”

I have wanted to cut glass with a waterjet machine ever since I learned that it was possible. Originally, I had a sheet of 0.15”-thick tempered glass laying around that I wanted to use… ends up that tempered glass explodes as soon as the pressurized beam of water touches it. I found a place that sold me “used” 0.375” plate glass as a replacement.

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