Final run from Nev · In 14 active carts · 68 lamps left
Nev's Hand-Poured Ocean Lamp
Nev's Hand-Poured Ocean Lamp
Ships in 2-3 days
30-day money-back guarantee
Each lamp is poured by hand over three days
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Nev's Hand-Poured Ocean Lamp
Poured In A Net Shed At Dickson Inlet
Nev Pascoe, seventy-four, Port Douglas, Far North Queensland. Forty-six years underwater, then an inner-ear injury ended it. Sixty-eight lamps left, and his eyes are going.
“I cannot get down to her anymore. So I built her somewhere I can still see her. That is all any of these are — a dive I get to take sitting down.”
Nev Pascoe on the manta ray at Opal Reef, February 1994
What turns up at your door
Why this is not the servo-counter version
The Deep-Pour Clarity
Built up in thin layers across three days, every layer hand-poured and hand-degassed so not one bubble survives. That is what buys real optical depth. You are not looking at blue plastic, you are looking down through water.
The True-Scale Figure
The diver and the animal sit in honest proportion — the way Nev actually saw them. A four-metre manta reduces the diver to a speck. Get the scale wrong and it is a toy with a light in it.
The Bommie Wall
The timber is shaped by hand into the profile of a real coral outcrop, worked from Nev’s own reef log books. No two are alike, because no two sites are alike.
The Tide-Line Seam
Where the resin meets the timber there is a fine foaming surf line, worked by hand. The slowest step in the build and the one a factory skips outright. “It is where the thing starts breathing.”
The Driftwood Anchor
A solid weighted timber base with its own grain, which hides the light and sits dead level on a shelf or a bedside table for twenty years. Furniture, not knick-knack.
The Ninety-Four Blue
Warm-to-cool LED across the full range, from the gold of a shallow morning to the cold blue-black of thirty metres. Named for the year of the manta and mixed to what that bommie looked like before.
“Most resin work that reaches the Australian market is a single pour with a moulded figure dropped into it, and you can pick it across a room. What is unusual here is the layering discipline — three days of thin pours, each one degassed by hand, which is the only way to get a genuine vertical colour gradient. The other tell is the water line at the timber. Almost nobody works that seam, because it cannot be costed at volume. This is a maker doing it the slow way because he does not know another way.”
Dr Helena Brandis
Materials conservator, contemporary craft, Brisbane
The four scenes, and where they happened
Where these end up
What you are actually buying
- Poured by one man, in one shed. Every lamp in this batch was built at the same bench at Dickson Inlet by the same pair of hands. There is no workshop team and no outsourced stage.
- A real place, on a real date. Each of the four scenes is a dive Nev can name the site and the year for, worked from forty years of his own hand-written reef log books.
- Layered, not single-poured. Three days of thin pours, each degassed by hand. That is where the depth comes from, and it is the step that cannot be rushed.
- Built to be switched on every night. USB-powered, button-controlled, weighted timber base. Meant for a bedside table, not a display cabinet.
- Sixty-eight left, and no second batch. Macular degeneration is taking the fine colour work. He will not put his name on a pour he cannot see well enough to check.
Thirty days, and one condition
Switch it on and live with it first. If it is not right, send an email and it goes back — no restocking fee and no explanation needed. Nev would rather have it back on the shelf for somebody who wants it than sitting in a cupboard because somebody felt awkward about asking.
About the hand work: every lamp is poured freehand, so no two are identical. Small differences in the timber grain, the depth of the colour and the position of the figure are part of the method, not faults. The timber is shaped individually, which means the reef profile inside your lamp exists exactly once.
Product details
| Material | Optically clear epoxy resin, layered over three days, on a solid timber base |
| Finish | Hand-sanded and polished on every face, hand-worked surf line at the water line |
| Designs | Manta ray · whale shark · sea turtles · turtle and divers |
| Dimensions | Approx. 20 cm tall, 13 cm wide at the base |
| Light | Warm-to-cool LED, USB-powered, button-controlled, full range of settings |
| Packaging | Boxed with the USB lead and a hand-written site card |
| Care | Wipe with a soft dry cloth. Keep out of direct sun, the same as any resin piece |
| Making | Hand-poured in layers, hand-degassed, timber shaped by hand. No moulds for the scene |
| Maker | Nev Pascoe, Port Douglas, Far North Queensland — in the water from 1969 to 2015 |
| Edition | Sixty-eight lamps remaining. No second batch. |
Why This Is The Final Run
Why This Is The Final Run
A note from the net shed at Dickson Inlet: Nev Pascoe went into the water for money at seventeen, diving trochus and pearl shell out of Thursday Island, and from 1978 he ran reef charters and dive courses out of Port Douglas — Agincourt, Opal, the Ribbon Reefs. Forty-six years in all.
In March 2015 he took an inner-ear hit on the ascent from a routine dive. The hearing came back. The balance organ did not, and without it he cannot tell which way is up underwater. He has not been in the water since.
What he does instead is pour the dives he can no longer take — the manta at Opal Reef in February 1994, the whale shark off the Ribbons in 1988, the green turtles at Agincourt. Each one is a place and a date he can name, worked from forty years of his own hand-written reef log books.
Now his sight is going. Dry macular degeneration, both eyes, and what it takes first is fine colour discrimination in the blues — the exact ability the work depends on, because he mixes every blue by eye from memory. There are sixty-eight lamps left and there will be no second batch. He will not put his name on a pour he cannot see well enough to check.
Shipping And Dimensions
Shipping And Dimensions
- Free tracked shipping Australia-wide
- Dispatch within 2–3 business days
- Boxed with the USB lead and a hand-written site card naming the reef and the year
- Approx. 20 cm tall, 13 cm wide at the base, weighted timber
- Optically clear epoxy resin, layered over three days and hand-degassed, on a solid timber base
- Warm-to-cool LED, USB-powered, button-controlled across the full range
- Wipe with a soft dry cloth. Keep out of direct sun, the same as any resin piece
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Frequently Asked Questions
Got a question? Here is how to reach us.
Got a question? Here is how to reach us.
Email us any time at info@backroad-goods.com. We answer Monday to Friday 9am–5pm and Saturday 10am–3pm. Whether it is about your order, which shelf the set will live on, or just to say hello — a real person writes back.
Which design should I pick?
Which design should I pick?
All four are real dives Nev can date and place, so it comes down to the scene you want on the shelf. The manta is the one he poured first and the one most people choose — it is the animal that turned over and watched him at Opal Reef in February 1994. The whale shark gives you the biggest scale contrast against the diver. The sea turtles are the gentlest and the usual pick for a child’s room. Turtle and divers has two figures in it and tends to go to couples.
Whichever you choose, there are sixty-eight lamps left across all four designs, and no second batch.
How are they made?
How are they made?
Each lamp is built up in thin layers of optically clear epoxy resin across three days, every layer poured and degassed by hand so no bubbles survive. That is where the optical depth comes from — you are looking down through water rather than at a block of blue plastic.
The timber inside is shaped by hand into the profile of a real coral outcrop, worked from Nev’s own reef log books, so no two are alike. The diver goes in with tweezers at exactly the right depth, sized to honest proportion against the animal. Where the resin meets the timber he works a fine foaming surf line by hand — the slowest step in the build and the one a factory skips outright.
Every face is then sanded and polished by hand. There is no mould for the scene at any stage.