I had been thinking about making Andon (lanterns) for a while and now that I had an LED circuit that would simulate a lantern flame inside a lantern it was a matter of design and construction. I had been capturing stills of andon from movies for awhile but these images only gave me a general idea of what these traditional timber and paper lanterns looked like and were short on detail. There are a few antique dealers on the net with who provided close up photos which indicated that construction methods were not neccesarily restricted to blind mortice and tenon joinery so I could start out with some simpler lap jointed projects. Here is one such dealer: http://www.shibuihome.com.

The andon on the left was my first attempt. The frame is pine and I used rice paper with the same 15 X 5mm LED circuit that was used in my jack o' lantern for illumination. The andon on the right was also made of pine but I used unryushi paper and a combination of 1watt white and 8mm yellow LEDs to give me a much brighter effect.

The construction method is the same for both lanterns although the design and size differ. I'll explain how I made the andon on the top right.

I used inexpensive 12mm tongue and groove plantation pine sold at $1.80 per metre. I selected off the rack looking for clear sections between the knots large enough for my design. I cut out the clear sections then ripped off the tongue, grove and center "V" groove. Lap joints are strong, simple and require no nails. After determining the location of my lap joints I cut the notches with a dado blade on a radial arm saw then ripped to 12mm strips using circular saw set up to rip in a stand with a jig to help ensure a clean cut.

Once everything was cut to size the andon could be snapped together for fine tuning. In this instance I was not sure of how high I wanted to put the handle until after I had done a trial assembly. I could then position the handle where I wanted it and then mark for the notches on the two uprights to which the handle is fixed. All joints were glued with PVA wood glue.

A flush cutting pull saw was used to trim the 12mm stubs extending outside the final profile of the lantern

The intricate criss cross patterns on shoji (screens) are called kumiko. I would suspect the name would also apply to andon. I used the same flush cutting pull saw and a japanese carving knife to cut the notches in the kumiko and the andon frame where the kumiko would be fixed in place. The kumiko were 8 x 8mm with the ends cut 8mm longer at 45° to fit into corresponding 45° notches in the andon frame.

If suitable timber with a square profile was available it would be possible to create the entire frame with just the the saw, knife and perhaps a correctly sized chisel. I suspect a Japanese craftsman two hundred years ago would have needed little else.

Needing both weight in the bottom of the lantern for ballast as well as a heat sink for the 1 watt LEDs, I mounted the LEDs on a 2.5mm piece of aluminium sheet. The 8mm LEDs could be press fit into 8mm holes and the 1 watt LEDs were mounted with 1/8th screws with nuts. The diffusser was made from scrap found in the freebee bin at a local glass shop. The sections were glued togther with super glue and two 1/8th screws were hot melt glued to two corners for fixing to the aluminium sheet. The circuit board was fixed to th bottom of the lantern with wood screws once the wires were connected.

Once again I used a PIC12F675 and the LED Candle program from http://www.r4nd0m.com/Candle.html. The 1 watt and 5 x 8mm LEDs in the centre remains on all the time. The 5 x 1 watt and 5 x 8mm LEDs on the outside are switched on and off randomly just like the other lantern and my jack o' lantern only this time I use the micro controller to switch 5 NPN transistors which in turn switch the LEDs since current required to run the 1 watt LEDs could not be supplied via the microcontroller. I purchased a 5.5VDC 1.5Amp regulated power supply specifically for this project.

I have not yet gotten around to figuring out how to do up a nice and neat computer generated circuit diagram so anyone interested will have to settle for my fast and dirty scratch pad diagram. One thing to note is that I used an 8mm LED instead of a base emitter resistor to the BC338 (NPN transistor). I had been told that this might fry the microcontroller and make lots of magic smoke, however, this has not been the case when running this lantern numerous times overnight. It also seems that due to the short term random nature in the on position much less heat is generated compared to the 1 watt LEDs in a constant on position.
Final Note:
From my research so far there seems to have been quite a bit of variety in style and design of andons. Construction would have been within the scope of the craftsman's ability as well as the availability of materials and toolkit. Japanese period films such as Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade, comtemporay Japanese films such as Sakuran and Zatoichi, as well as the Hollywood blockbusters Memiors of a Geisha and Last Samurai all contained night time scenes where rooms were illuminated with andons. However, I doubt if any of those scenes employed andons lit with oil or candle as the sole source of light.

I could probably get more light from an andon lit with a standard incandesent bulb but I was looking for ambience and not just a bright light. The question in the back of my mind is how much light would an oil, or candle, lit andon have provided? I intend to make another andon following a much more traditional pattern such as this one and setting it up as an oil lamp.

The andon in the above link is of a very common design used to light a room at night and be put away during the day. Edward S. Morse in his book Japanese Homes and their Surroundings, (pub 1885) described a similar lamp and wrote "The light from this lamp is feeble and uncertain and by it one can barely see his way about the room".

I Suppose I will have to see for myself. Morse found much to praise in his book so I have no reason to believe he was describing anything more than his actual observation.

Here's a list of books I have found very helpful, The first two for the insight into Japanese joinery, the third for a more western approach to constructing Japanese lanterns and the fourth is the one which I have already cited and which may still be available. My copy was part of an architectural series by Dover Books copyrighted and first published in 1961 and is an unaltered unabridged edition of the original 1885 publication. I might add its a real gem if your interested in this sort of thing. I lend it very reluctantly.
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