I really wish i would have recorded this one. I don’t know why i didn’t. Maybe i thought it would take longer, and be way more complicated than it actually was.
Anxiety about stripping the paint with chemicals, but trying to retain the original paint on some parts, anyway it didn’t happen, but the restore did.
I mean look at it. The one on the right. With the amount of extra paint, including gloss, i really was a bit worried about how this would go.
Anyway first things first, strip it down to it’s component pieces.
This involved mole grips, wrenches and a flat headed screwdriver. Some of the bolts in the head were missing or too far gone, so they will be replaced at the rebuild part.
It’s at this point i tried to read the panel on the side of the head, which tells you who made the lamp. There were so many layers it was completely unreadable. I also noticed that the layers and layers of paint were also painted inside the shade as well. I mean Who would do such a thing!!!!
Torn apart and ready to be stripped of all that paint.
I used a simple biodegradeable paint stripper. I’m thinking, on the parts that were going to go back to bare metal, all the arms, i should have used something with a bit more guts.
Anyway, it took 2 straight evenings of using the stripper to get it all of. I employed some old dental picks at the end to get into all the nooks and crannies.
I covered these parts multiple times in the stripper and used lots of different scraping tools.
all down to bare metal. and happy with the result. most of the moving parts got a coat of clearcoat lacquer. I wanted to keep the colours of the old metal, as they looked perfect for this rebuild.
The lampshade.
The original paint was underneath all of this mess, inside and out. Inside was a bright white porcelain layer, which was damaged in parts, along with some dents and paint loss on the outside, but i wanted to leave this, as it shows the light has had a hard life in a factory or shop floor.
I was a little unsure about using chemicals to strip this, but the time being taken to scrape it back was too much. i did about half the inside and resorted to putting the stripper on the first layer at least. This cut the time down and worked ok. I timed it right, so it hadn’t cut through any other layers but had softened them up enough to get it off a lot easier.
The porcelain came through nicely. On the outside i stuck with scraping and it flaked off quite easily.
I then used a metal polish to cut through and shine up the existing paint which worked a treat.
Putting it back together was a fairly easy process. just a bit of lining things up and elbow grease with the wrenches.
Almost the finished product. I used some light oak to create a solid base for the lamp, and fully outstretched will be a perfect floorstander for someone.
The final touches are still to happen, and that is the bulb holder and wiring. Still in the post unfortunately.
Anyway, i’m really happy with the restoration, and how good the lamp looks. I do however have another one to do. an EDL made task lamp.
It isn’t as complicated, and as messy, but still a good little project to work on.
I think i will get the camera out for that one, and create a video, start to finish.
Have fun out there, learning, restoring, creating and just living a good life.
About Me.
I’m Gareth, a 40 year old Blogger, Photographer, Maker/Restorer of things.
Trying to make my life as full as possible with learning experiences, and helping others along the way.
I love cooking, making, restoring/upcycling boxes, doing fun stuff with my family, photography, giving myself skills and learning something new everyday.
