How to Re-Wire a Vintage Lamp

Becky Stern is a maker living in NYC, publishing DIY projects about technology, and crafts from her Brooklyn studio.

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[johannan]

Maker people are so funny. Antique Lamp meetup? I'm in.

[TechnoChic]

I suddenly became dissatisfied with the cord color of all of my lamps. 😅haha Very cool!

[thomashverring]

When we moved to where we live now, we needed some light on our closed balcony. I made six hanging lamps with as many different coloured wires. They were hung in three pairs, each pair having two different lampshade shades (white with a few red stripes, and orange—both old curtain fabric from the 70s). The combination of the lampshades makes the light seem like sunlight. A happy accident I really love! Originally I wanted them to look like small ghosts with the fabric just hanging down over the LED bulbs, but it turned out to my surprise that the bulbs got fairly warm. My solution ended up being a CD on each socket to spread the fabric and keep it from the bulb. The CDs reflect the light and make the lamps better. Another happy accident :^) The last thing that came from it was that I bought some better tools for working with electrical wire 😅

[RPrice_OG]

I remember it by black to brass both start with a 'b' but white to the white metal is cool. And thanks for the color cord info, I was thinking about cloth wrapped wire for a project earlier today but was too lazy to research it and now I don't have to, thanks.

[tripwire]

with a lamp body containing that much metal I always feel safer to ground the body when the lamp itself does not provide a ground terminal. You know - stuff happens and those wire loops could come loose and touch the lamp body.

[jmg]

I love your ingenuity! You always have such great ideas, and your ability to figure out how to implement them is really impressive.

[CyanTiger]

Thanks for sharing and I really like the gate valve lamp. My favorite lamp was one made from stainless solder stenclices wrapped into a cylinder. It was capped at the top and you put a long bulb in it and projected the most amazing designs on the wall.

[simonhopkins]

Oh that old single insulated 2 core cable. Back in the day with homemade homemade fuses.

[ameyring]

I love rewiring lamps except those with skinny long metal tubes barely wide enough for wires.

[mundanestuff]

I need to spice it up, we have four wall sconces in our 1902 house where my kids go to SUNY Fredonia (opposite end of NY from you?). Long story, but turns out its about 1/4 the cost to literally buy a house than to send three kids to live in a dorm. Anywho, these sconces are abysmal and need to go, but all the ones I can find seem just as boring. So I'm trying to convince my art major child to design one we can print them, something themed like Pokemon heads with the bulb being their power manifested. Anywho, cool old lamp and good instructions! The power cord tip is cool too!

[yetzt]

How can you break a power strip by switching live and neutral?

[KooWugju]

Just saying hello I hope your doing well. :)

[SocialistSociopathPK]

Today generation only know about anti don't know antiques

[christopherbedford]

Get a stand microphone, Becky Stern. Or clip your clip-on mic on to sometthing. It's not like you're not wearing clothes, or you could it put on a hat like Laura does. You look like the kind of person who could pull off a "hat" look. Or: you're a crafter, you could make a stand that the clip-on could clip onto. Holding that thing in your hand makes you look like someone who forgot they just took the chewing gum out their mouth and just started recording. It makes you look lazy, or unorganised, or both.