How to Repair a Lamp Art Deco Style

The pottery above is a forties era Gonder ceramic lamp base purchased through eBay, the place where I have found all my Gonder pottery. There are distinct molds and color glazes that make Gonder recognizable. The pottery was produced between 1941-1957 and has the Gonder name on the bottom. The glaze Lawton Gonder developed is noted for non crazing and resistance to chipping. Take a vase with layers of grime to hot water and soap and the piece will clean to a new shiny surface, smooth and bright.

I want to make this lamp base whole and working again, and it will look perfect glowing in the front window.

The picture in the intro is how the lamp looked when I received it. A layer of grime is visible. A three inch bolt with the cord running through it was inside the lamp. It was connected to the assembly with a nut that I eventually unscrewed with fingers and a long nose pliers. I clipped the cord with dikes and the ceramic base was free.

Above are the parts on the top of the base. I will toss these old lamp parts and cord.

Next I cleaned the ceramic base in very warm Ivory Dish Soap. I used a mild scrubber to get the grime off and it looked like new. Very shiny.

There is a hole for the cord in back and a hole on top. Open on the bottom.

The new lamp pictured at right I could not get apart. All the sections were too tight for me to loosen. The shade was assembled onto the pillar below the socket.

I asked this home's handyman to try getting it apart. He got it done with a wrench and considerable tugging.

One lesson I learned at this point; a lamp is put together with segments, and a nut is used to stabilize each section.

This is the photo to gauge our vintage art deco lamp before and after restoration.

These are the parts from the new lamp. I will reuse the two socket parts on the left. I will use the new cord for the lamp rewiring.

The original hollow pipe and nut in the old ceramic base will be reused. After some calculating I decided I needed a four inch pipe threaded at both ends to get the shade to sit at the correct height.

Trips to the local home improvements and the hardware store did not offer what I needed. They were sadly lacking in serious parts for lamp repair. I realized that lamp repair is specialized and so the Internet is the place to go to order lamp parts.

eBay is where I went looking for lamp parts.

Repair on the art deco table lamp, so far.

The fancy nut has threads and will tighten to hold the rusty bolt up.

Screw on the third tube part of the socket.

Last I put four felt circles on the bottom edges of the ceramic base.
The lamp is complete. The view on the inside. See the pictures of the completed retro lamp below.
If you may have questions on how to repair a lamp feel free to ask in the comment section.