Monday, September 22, 2014

Painted White Floor Lamp with Swivel Arm and UNO Shade Holder - New Lamp Cord

We are all about repair, reduce, reuse, recycle, retain, repurpose, rebeautify and maybe a few more re- words that don't come to mind at this time. Our customers feel the same. Often we get a lamp in the shop that needs a little touch up. Sometimes the owner has already touched it up and now wants it to work again.

This white floor lamp was brought in the other day and the customer said it needed a new lamp cord. This lamp was probably brass at one point, but brass and gold are not popular colors or maybe.... Back on topic: new lamp cord. One thing we want to do is visually inspect the lamp and test the other lamp parts (socket) for working order.


This lamp looks nice. The socket interior is not painted and turning the key makes a firm and smooth click for opening and closing the circuit.


First the lamp arm has an adjustment screw so it is taken off. Another term would be a die cast swivel with ratchet grip. Either way the center screw holds the pieces together and removing the screw will give us access to the lamp cord at the top of the column.


Laying a lamp like this on a work bench or table allows you to see the base and top at the same time. The old lamp cord was in the body of the lamp, but was cut at the base. Since this cord is cut and needs to be discarded anyway, we are going to use it as out leader line to pull the new cord into the lamp. First we trim the cord and strip the wires on the new cord. Next we solder the new cord to the old cord so when we pull the old cord up the lamp the new cord will come with it.





Remove the old lamp cord from the bridge arm. Unscrew the socket key. Open the socket by prying the socket shell from the socket cap. This lamp has another swivel with ratchet grip above the socket, it also needs to be disassembled to gain access to the lamp cord channel.





The new lamp cord is threaded through the arm of the lamp and attached to the socket interior. The smooth wire connects to the brass screw and the ribbed wire connects to the nickel screw. The swivels are put back together and the socket shell is attached to the socket cap.






The cord slack is pulled back through the base of the lamp and the swivel screws are tightened. The lamp is placed back on the ground and the swivels are adjusted for a natural angle.



A bulb is added and the lamp is tested for operation.


Perfect. Total Cost < $5.00 Total Time < 30 minutes.

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