The Perfect (almost) Work Bench Light

I've been on a quest for years for a bright, high intensity work bench light to for doing inlay work, purfling miters and all the detail jobs where you need a clean, white, bright light. I stumbled upon an EcoSmart LED light bulb at Home Depot the other day and I'm sold! It's a 60 watt equivalent, using only 15 watts in the real world. The only down sides are that it weighs over a pound so some modification of you lamp may be necessary. And it's also expensive--about $45 for the bulb, but since it's got a 10 year warranty I'm not going to have to worry about replacing it for a while. It's little things like this that rock my world.

I use two lights for fine work. If you are using just one point source light your perception will not be as accurate because of highlight and shadows cast from a single light setup. I use those cheap metal arm lights mounted to the wall, one on each side of my work setup much like you would set up lights on a photo copy stand. The bulbs don't matter as much as the evenness you get from a two light setup.

I've got six light illuminating my work bench so I'm getting light from multiple sources. My quest however has been for the perfect bulb. I've shied away from LEDs because I liked what I've seen. This particular LED bulb is very bright, but the quality of light itself is super CLEAN, not yellow or blue or like the "daylight" lamps. If I hadn't seen a working display of this bulb at Home Depot I would've passed it by. I've experimented with every type of bulb possible except for the LEDs. I'm glad I did.