Friday, May 15, 2015

Red Table Lamp With Arm Gets Rewired

A customer brought in this lamp the other day with a classic arm and gallery at the socket. It needed a new molded plastic lamp cord and socket since it was recently repainted (candy apple red) and didn't have any hardware on it.


The first thing we do is to disassemble the lamp. Take the gallery off the threaded rod and remove the threaded rod from the end of the lamp arm. You can see the old wire still in the lamp body.





Next we take the weight out of the lamp base. Lamp weights are especially important when the materials of the lamp do not weigh enough to support the lamp or keep it from falling over. With this lamp having an arm, the center of gravity is moved away from the base so the use of a weight is most important.


Now we take the lamp body off the lamp so we have direct access to the lamp arm. The old lamp cord needs to be pulled out. It proves to be easier said than done. The old cord was quite stubborn and took many attempts (8 pulls, 4 grunts, 2 in-audibles, and 1 obvious curse word: who's counting?).




Finally with the old wire out and all the pieces separate, we can start the rewiring and reassembly of this lamp.


The new lamp cord had a molded polarized plug and for wiring a lamp that means it has to pass through each part in the right order. Make sure you have all the nuts and pieces in the right order and together. The first thread of the lamp cord is through the base. We pull plenty of wire through and then tie a knot.



As mentioned before, the cord is threaded through each lamp part in order: hex nut, leaded base, outer base, lamp rod and so on.







When you get to the arm, threading the new cord is a bit challenging. Remember the special lamp tools? We are going to use those small clamps to grab the wire from the arm and pull it out.



Next the gallery and socket cap are added to the lamp.




Next the socket interior is wired to the lamp cord. The smooth wire connects to the brass screw and the ribbed wire connects to the silver screw. The cord slack is pulled back through the arm.




The lamp key it attached to the socket interior and the socket shell is snapped into the socket cap.




The pieces of the lamp body are placed back together with the cord slack being pulled from the base. With the lamp back together and the nut screwed on tight, the knot in the base is adjusted.


Finished!



Total time < 40 minutes Total Cost < $15.00

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