Opal Electric Aladdin Lamp Repair

Aladdin Mantle Lamp company set the standard on oil lamps for both beauty and function. Their lamps with kerosene mantle could produce light much brighter than a traditional burner and wick. There are lots of fan clubs and discussion boards for Aladdin Lamps, but here we only want to talk about making the old electric burners safer.

A customer brought in this lamp the other day and it had an electric style burner. These were made by Aladdin after electricity was introduced so a consumer could use their lamp with shade and chimney on electricity and switch back to kerosene if needed. Electricity was not reliable in the early stages. This customer's burner has an old  cord and the socket interior is not closing the circuit well.

The lamp parts needed to repair this electric burner are a new white molded plug lamp cord and on/off socket interior. First thing is to remove the top gallery and shade holder from the burner.

Next pry the socket shell from the socket cap and remove the socket key.

You should be able to remove the burner body from the lamp body by unscrewing the burner.

Unscrew the wire from the old socket interior and remove the old lamp cord. Replace the lamp cord with the new cord and tie a UL knot in the cord.

Attach the new socket interior to the new lamp cord. The smooth wire connects to the brass screw terminal and the ribbed wire connects to the nickel screw terminal.

Attach the socket key to the interior and pull the cord slack out of the socket. Snap the socket shell back on to the socket cap.

Replace the shade holder and gallery back on the burner. Add a bulb and test the socket.

Screw the burner back on the lamp body.

Now the lamp is safe, working great, and looks original. Good work! Total Time < 15 minutes Total Cost < $10.00