Here are a few photos of the inside of this little light.

First, you can see that the bottom is carved out. I used a big (1 1/4″) spade bit to drill out the space for the wires and battery. BE CAREFUL. It can throw the wood right at you. Use a clamp and a full face plastic face mask. (I’ve had more than one piece of wood try to rip my hands off / poke my eye out.)

The brass tube which supports the bulb is toward the left (it’s “potted” in some Liquid Nails). The power goes up through a thin wire (a wire-wrap gauge) up to the lamp. The brass tube itself is the ground, meaning we only need one wire going up. (It’s low voltage — 9 V — so it’s safe.)

The button is toward the right. The battery nestles in between:

Here is the magic part of this project:

The brass tube comes up through a small hole in the bottom of the bulb base. It’s soldered into place at the bottom. It pops through about an inch or so, to which I soldered a current drop resistor. With the brass soldering work done, I installed the LED. It’s a 10 mm white LED. One lead is soldered to the wire wrap gauge wire fed through the brass tube. The other lead is soldered to the resistor. Some heat shrink was used to keep things from shorting out.

The key is the bulb. It’s not a real light bulb. A while back I found some very realistic looking clear light bulbs at Hobby Lobby. They are perfect for projects like this, and much safer — the glass is nice and thick. I spray painted the inside & outside to get a nice frosting effect (light coats, drying between each coat). The bulb is a little heavy, so make sure you carefully secure the brass tube in the base. Mine is a little bouncy, but not bad.

Here is the finished product, on our dusty & cluttered night stand: