Floor Lamp with Busted Socket Cluster and Pull Chain Sockets

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Floor Lamp with Busted Socket Cluster and Pull Chain Sockets

A customer brought this patient in the other day and said it needed some major work . The lamp cords were completely missing from the lamp and the sockets were bad. This floor lamp had been painted so matching the color was not going to work. The customer said it was to be repainted so not to worry about finishes. After closely inspecting the lamp we found the sockets were molded to the cluster, so the lamp parts needed to fix this floor lamp include cluster body, 2 pull chain sockets, lamp cord, plug, reducing neck, and 4 lead wires.

Remove the cap from the socket cluster and undo any wiring. Unscrew the cluster body from the lamp body.

Take stock of any parts that can be reused. Unfortunately for this lamp, the socket caps are molded to the cluster body and the socket insulators are completely shot. We love reusing old parts, but safety must come first. This post of the floor lamp body has a 1/4IP thread. The replacement cluster has a 1/8IP thread, so we will need a reducing neck to connect the lamp base to the new cluster body.

Connect the socket caps to the cluster body and tighten the seating screws. Since we added the neck just below the cluster body the socket caps are a little tight. Using a flat head screw driver we carefully adjust the rods for the socket caps.

Wiring the sockets is relatively easy. Using 6 inch lead wires we attached the black wire to the brass screw and the white wire to the silver screw. Tip: If you do not have lead wires, recycle a piece of lamp cord. Make sure you wire the correct wire to the right screw on the socket interior.

Feed the lead wires up the socket caps and lock the socket shells in place. Remember to have the pull chain in the right position on the lamp. Usually the chains are at opposing sides.

With the socket cluster and sockets attached, the lamp is ready for the lamp cord. Laying the lamp on its side makes it much easier to get access to the base and feed the cord in the lamp.

Take your time and go easy. You do not want to put a kink in the cord. Once it reaches the top it might need some assistance. Here the small clamps come in handy.

The customer wanted a special rayon covered lamp cord and antique style plug. It looks really good on this style floor lamp. Trim some of the rayon off the cord and expose the wires. Tie a knot in the cord to keep it from falling down the lamp and to keep the rayon from unraveling. These wires are already stripped, but we will need to strip the lead wires from the sockets.

Using wire nuts, connect the black wires together and the white wires together. Carefully inspect the wire nuts and make sure no bare wires are visible from the bottom of the wire nut. The wires might need to be trimmed, but they should completely fit inside the nut.