Old Tin Lamp Tutorial Part 2: Making A Lamp with Bead Legs

 

Continuing on from the Part 1 of the Old Tin Lamp Tutorial, we are going to start by creating a Sugar tin lamp with legs.  At the end of this tutorial, I’ll be taking the lamp apart.  I’m going to use exactly the same sugar tin and wood plaque to make a legless version of this lamp with the cord going out the back of the tin.

 

The first step will be to put a hole in the center of the bottom of the tin for our 1/8 IP pipe to go through.  I use a ruler to measure the center.  A pipe is generally 3/8” in diameter.  I drill a 7/16” hole.  I put the drill bit in the photo to give you an idea of the size of the hole.

 

 

For any hole, I would first drill a small pilot hole and then drill a bigger hole.  When I’m drilling metal, I often use a stepped drill bit because the hole can be deburred automatically.

 

 

Once the hole is drilled I can place my pipe through all the parts to verify that my pipe will work with my parts.  I know the pipe will work if the bottom of the pipe doesn’t extend beyond the bottom of my wood base and the top of my pipe has enough threads to keep the socket securely attached to the pipe, about 5/16”.

 

 

I have many pipes in a variety of sizes.  If you were making only one lamp, you’d stack up all your lamp parts and measure from the bottom of the base to the top of the neck. You should have about 5/16” of thread above the neck for screwing on the socket.

 

 

We’re going to put legs on this lamp.  We need to drill pilot holes for the wood screws that secure our legs to the wood plaque.

 

 

I’m using a couple metal washers, a plastic bushing and a bead stacked up to make each leg.  I put the pieced on the screw in the order I want and screw the stack into the wood.  I decided to go with a higher leg, so I had to move my holes over.  If the holes bothered me, I would add felt to the bottom.  As it is, not many people will turn over the lamp to look at the bottom.

 

 

Above you can see all the legs screwed into the base. You can also see that I’ve completely assembled my lamp parts onto the pipe and fastened the nuts down. 

 

 

I’m just going to put my lamp completely together to see how it looks.  I haven’t wired the lamp yet, but I have put my socket inside the socket cover.

 

 

I can now put a bulb inside the socket and put a clip-on shade onto the lamp.  With the lamp assembled like this, I can experiment with different shades.  If I don’t like the way my lamp looks at this point, I can easily take it apart.  I might, for instance decide that I would rather have a lampshade that sits on top of a harp.  In that case, I would have to add the harp base between the top of the neck and the bottom of the socket.

 

 

Above are little plastic bushings that protect the cord from rubbing against sharp metal.  I’ll be using one of these on my cord.

 

 

Now I’m going to start to wire my lamp.  I slipped the little plastic bushing onto my cord to prevent the cord from rubbing against any sharp edges on my pipe.

 

 

I pull the cord through from the bottom of the base up through the bottom of the socket.

 

 

I want to do an underwriter’s knot inside the socket cover.  The knot helps insure that the bare wire leads cannot be pulled out of the socket by accident. 

 

 

You’ll notice that one half of the cord has ridges on the plastic whereas the other side is smooth.  The ridged side goes on the neutral screw, generally silver colored.  The smooth lead goes on the hot screw, generally gold colored.  I put a loop in the lead and put the end of the loop facing the direction the screw turns.  Hooking the lead toward the direction of the turning screw will make it easier to get the lead tightly wrapped around the screw.

 

 

Once the socket is connected, screw on the cap.  I test the lamp by adding a bulb and turning the lamp on.

 

 

I add the shade to make sure the lamp still looks good.  You can see in the photo above that the cord is coming out from underneath the wood base.

 

Next time: Part 3: Making an Old Tin Lamp with the cord coming out the back of the tin.