Cracked Black Plastic Sockets Are An Easy Fix

Many lamps today are made with inexpensive components. Specifically, I mean the black plastic sockets used in most household table lamps. These sockets are brittle and easily chipped and cracked. If you are like me and often shop in the closeout section or the "imperfect" type of store, you will easily find these sockets cracked, chipped, and often missing on the lamps for sale. The good news is they are really easy to fix.

As this video demonstrates, there are 3 parts of the plastic socket: cap (bottom), shell (top), and the socket interior. The shell screws on to the cap and can be replaced in a few minutes.

Don't let those cracked, chipped or bent lamp parts keep you from getting the lamp you like.

3 Way Keyless Socket Interior

A keyless socket interior or keyless socket is not a typical lamp socket. It doesn't have a switch function so the circuit control needs to be performed by another mechanism. The keyless socket is the true "lamp holder" with no other purpose. Keyless sockets are ideal for pendant lamps (use a switch on the wall) or chandeliers (one switch controls all the lights) and some cluster lamps.

48204 - Leviton Brand Short Keyless Medium Base Socket Interior

40204G - Leviton Brand, Keyless Socket

40266 - Leviton Brand Keyless Plastic Medium Base Bakelite Socket

The more complicated keyless socket is a 3-way socket. Designed for 3-way bulbs, the 3-way socket has the extra contact point on the base of the socket. 3-way bulbs have a low, medium, and high setting from having 2 sets of filaments.

On-Off PushThru Socket Interior

On/Off Turn Knob Socket Interior

3-Way Turn Knob Socket Interior

48220i - 3-Way Keyless Socket Interoir

For the 3-way socket to work with the 3-way bulb, you will need a 3-way switch and wire it in the correct order. Our 40402 switches are 2 circuit and will work with a 3-way interior.

40402N - 3-Way 2 Circuit Nickel Rotary Switch

Here is a wiring diagram to make it work:

The switch has 4 positions and the socket has 3 screw terminals. As the diagram shows, the smooth lamp cord wire connects to the black wire of the switch. The ribbed lamp cord connects to the nickel screw terminal on the socket. The red wire is the first circuit to turn on so it connects to the brass plated screw terminal and the blue wire connects to the black screw terminal. In the 4th position of the switch, both red and blue wires are on the closed circuit and the 3-way bulb has both filaments lit.

How to Wire/Rewire Chandelier Arms

Wiring or rewiring a chandelier is like rewiring a bunch of small table lamps with keyless sockets and tying them all together. The wires typically join together in a cluster.

First, turn off the power at the breaker.

Next, decide if you want to rewire the chandelier hanging or by taking it down. If it is large and only needs a few socket rewired, leaving it hanging might be an option. If all the arms need to be rewired and you are interested in a complete cleaning and dusting, bring it down.

Most all lamps are connected with threaded parts (rods, nuts, and washers). For over a century lamp parts use International Pipe (IP) standard sizes for rods and threads. The most common size is 1/8IP and it measures about 3/8 inch. For chandelier arms, you can find 1/8IP threads on both ends.

11934 - 3 1/2" X 2" Cast Brass Lamp or Fixture Arm

12063U - 1 3/4" Brass Bent Lamp or Fixture Arm

Even glass chandelier arms will have a 1/8IP connection in the ferrules.

11883 - 6" - 14" Cut Glass Chandelier Arm

Once you have located the nut or tapped piece holding the arm to the chandelier, unscrew it. Take your time and be careful. Often these parts are brass, a soft metal. The steel nut may look rusty and you might need to use some rust inhibitor but still take it easy. If you damage the threads or break an arm, you will create more work.

With the arm off the body, you have a  great chance to clean the chandelier. If the arm has old wiring try to connect the new wire before you pull the old wire out. Often the wire will be too brittle or too short, so you will need to remove the old wire.

Pulling new wire through the arm can be a challenge. Remove any other cups or bobesches from the arm to eliminate and minimize turns and bends.

Parallel cord is too soft and 2 wire might be too thick to push through the arm. You will need to fish a line in the arm to pull the wire back through. Our favorite is a beaded chain with gravity.

Push the beaded chain in one side of the arm and feed it some slack. Using gravity, rotate the arm around and continue to feed the chain. The beaded chain seems to have enough weight to make it through without getting snagged.

Next, you will need to connect your new wires to the chain. Make sure the connection is strong by using some thin wire or solder at the connection.

Pull the chain so the wires are completely through the arm.

Now you can slip the socket cap over the wires and connect it to the arm.

Now you can wire the socket interior to the wires. Remember the black wire goes on the brass screw and the white wire on the nickel screw. Polarity is always important and increases the more load (amps) you are pulling from a circuit.

Pull the cord slack back down the arm and connect the socket shell. 

Now the arm is ready to join the chandelier body. 

Great! Only 5 more to go!

Broken Antique Brass Reflector Type Floor Lamp with Cluster and Mogul Socket Repaired

The mogul cluster floor lamp is kind of complicated, but highly versatile. The 3 way mogul socket is capable of  burning a 3 way mogul bulb with 100, 200, or 300 watts. The cluster with a two circuit switch can burn 3 - 60 watt bulbs (together or as a single, double). The single bulb might be nice for relaxing, double bulbs for tying shoes, triple bulbs for reading. Add the mogul socket and you can land personal aircraft or signal a vessel lost at sea. You have a lot of options.

A customer brought this patient in the other day and complained it wasn't working. Most lamps have a simple cord, switch, and socket. This reflector type floor lamp was much more complicated with a cluster, three keyless sockets, a two circuit rotary switch and mogul socket. With so many different bulbs and switches, we add some bulbs to see what is and what is not working. At this point we are not sure what lamp parts are needed for this repair.

There is no power to any of the bulbs. We need to inspect the wire and trace down where the power is failing to connect. We start by removing the bulbs and the candle covers from the keyless sockets.

Next we open the cluster of the lamp and look at the wiring in the cluster.

With the mogul socket removed we test it using a spare cord and some alligator clamps.

So we now know that with power the mogul socket works properly. We turn our attention to the two circuit switch. Using an OHM meter we test the switch.

This switch has two circuits: four possible options
1) Off
2) Circuit A (keyless sockets 1 + 2)
3) Circuit B (keyless socket 3)
4) Circuit A+B (keyless sockets 1, 2, and 3)

With the OHM meter touching the wires we rotate the switch and make sure all 4 options are working as they should. In this case they are working. We feel like there might have been a bad connection in the wire nut to the rotary switch. We will start putting the lamp back together using the same parts. Since we feel like the two circuit switch was a potential problem, we write the date we tested the switch for reference.

We group the wires from the keyless sockets together and mark them with a pen. The two circuit switch is connected to the keyless socket wires. Two sockets to the blue line and one socket to the red line. The black line on the switch connects to the lamp cord with the plug.

Next the mogul socket is wired back to the lamp. It connects directly to the lamp cord with the plug. Note: The mogul socket has a switch so we do not want it on the two circuit switch. It is never a good idea to have two single pole switches on a single circuit.

Before closing the cluster and after the wire nuts are safely in place, bulbs are added and the lamp is plugged in for testing.

Knowing all the wiring is correct and working, the cluster is closed.

This lamp is ready. Total cost $0.00 Total Time: 30 minutes.