{"id":1137,"date":"2017-10-20T08:49:09","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T21:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2017-10-22T12:14:34","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T01:14:34","slug":"retro-lamp-resto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/retro-lamp-resto\/","title":{"rendered":"Retro Lamp Resto"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August this year, I had a brilliant\u00a0day at the snow (Falls Creek) with my lovely wife, sister-in-law and nephew, followed by a day of cruising around the Kiewa and Ovens valleys, enjoying the scenery and searching for treasure in every junk and antiques store\u00a0we saw.<\/p>\n

I found this ugly duckling lamp for $15 at the Co-op Collectibles Vintage Store<\/a> in Dederang. Surely that mucky bakelite and rusty metal could be made more interesting! What on earth were they thinking with that concrete block though?<\/p>\n

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“Unrealised potential”<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

This was actually a pretty straightforward mini-project — dismantle, clean, strip, restore, assemble and find something to replace that awful concrete block.<\/p>\n

The shade was a taped-up, faded mess that required cleaning and polishing. I repaired the crack by carefully filling with\u00a0superglue and then scraping away any excess glue. It cleaned\u00a0up really well, but you can still see the discolouration at the bottom where insulation tape held it together for many years.<\/p>\n

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Polishing almost finished and crack sealed with super glue. The dark band at the bottom is where insulation tape held the shade together for umpteen years.<\/p><\/div>\n

Dismantling was straightforward. I stripped, cleaned and undercoated the parts before spraying the arms and base with satin black. I used a drill-mounted cloth wheel and polishing compound to clean up the shiny metal, and then finished them with Mothers\u00a0mag and aluminium\u00a0polish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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All the components as purchased (left) and after cleaning up and undercoating.<\/p><\/div>\n

I bought an old-school mechanical switch from Waverley Antique Bazaar<\/a> for just $5. It complements\u00a0the lamp nicely and all it needed was a quick test and polish.<\/p>\n

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Bi-modal electron flow controller.<\/p><\/div>\n

The red gum block came from an old bench pulled out of our garage 15+ years ago. I trimmed off the weathered surface using\u00a0my table saw, then carefully drilled and routed to accept the cables, switch and lamp base.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The starting point <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Partly <\/a>
Partly trimmed <\/div> <\/div>
\"Finished <\/a>
Finished block, ready for lamp hardware <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

The cloth-covered cord has a lovely retro vintage look and it suits this lamp to a tee. Lots of cloth covered cords are available online, but this one is from\u00a02k labware’s<\/a> stall at Waverley Antique Bazaar. I’m particularly pleased with how tidy the underside is, especially the cable routing and the handmade wooden straps that hold the lamp cord.<\/p>\n

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Just as happy with the underside as the topside.<\/p><\/div>\n

I finished the block with 3rd Bit’s beeswax mix<\/a> and it came up beautifully. Final assembly, a low-wattage LED globe and it was ready for service. Beautiful\u00a0enough to star in\u00a0the\u00a0Pixar intro<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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This photo doesn’t do justice to the shade. Even so, there’s no doubt the lamp is a much lovelier thing than I started with.<\/p><\/div>\n

Bonus snow pic<\/a> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In August this year, I had a brilliant\u00a0day at the snow (Falls Creek) with my lovely wife, sister-in-law and nephew, followed by a day of cruising around the Kiewa and Ovens valleys, enjoying the scenery and searching for treasure in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[70,68,69,65,4,5,66,64,67],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects","tag-antique","tag-bakelite","tag-kiewa","tag-lamp","tag-led","tag-lighting","tag-red-gum","tag-restoration","tag-retro"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lamp-featured-image-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8H2X3-il","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}