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Period Lighting Fixtures, St. John's Episcopal Church, Waterbury, CT.
The Challenge: These lighting fixtures were originally gas. Sometime in the mid twentieth century, they were converted to electricity. No other work was done to them since the conversion. Our task, remove the fixtures to the factory, up-date all electrical components, and refinish metal components. Many of the metal components were actually replaced, including the 14' stem covers. We did reuse the decorative metal parts however. Some of the items had to be sand blasted to remove the years of corrosion and grime prior to being relacquered or repainted. 4 of the downlights were missing and were replaced. Safety harnesses were added as well.
More Details... TOP CROWN ASSEMBLY This assembly consists of a fabricated brass crown, die cast decorative elements, and a painted spinning which form the "top" of the unit. The metal spinning was deformed and corroded, as was the brass crown. The decorative elements were badly tarnished. After taking the components apart and sand blasting the pieces to remove corrision and old paint, they were refinished and reassembled. The spinning was primed and repainted. The brass was straighten and brushed and then reassembled. WIRING THE CANDLES The "before" pictures shows the wiring as it was done years ago. Each of the 4 candles has 2 wires which meet in the center, and are then connected to the feed wiring from the central hub. Back then, manufacturers used wire nuts, today we use push in wire connectors. We also use 18 gage solid wire, not the old silk covered wire yesteryear! CENTRAL HUB The unit has multiple circuits. The 6 arms are fed through the central hub. The before picture shows the tangle of wires that were replaced with 18 The hub and "spokes" of this unit were all brushed, cleaned and repainted. All brass items were cleaned brushed and relacquered as well. Again, all wire connections were made with push-in connectors.
CLOSE UP OF CENTRAL RING The central ring is made of solid brass pieces and welded together to form an approximate 32" diameter ring. Over the years, the paint has blisted and peeled and the brass has tarnished and corruded. These rings were sand blasted in an industrial size sand blasting cabinet, and then hand brushed to smooth out the blasting. The two colors were hand applied and then the units were clear lacquered. This type of hand work will insure that the units are as close to original as they can be. |
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