Ungrounded appliances

[HoosierBuddy]

Hey guys,

I was thinking this morning back to when I was a kid and we had to worry about getting the **** shocked out of you by old metal cased appliances or power tools. In particular, I remember hearing about a person who needed to drill a mounting hole on their truck, laid down under it with the power drill, reached up to drill the hole, pulled the trigger...and that's where they recovered the body.

So...fast forward 30 years or so.

My son is ready to start on his 4H electrical project for next year. (As I related in an earlier post...these things get judged and they get judged hard).

The project he has chosen is to rebuild and repurpose an old Fostoria, 1940's era, Industrial light. It's what would have been used in a factory as a task light on a lathe, screw machine, milling machine, etc. It's all metal, with an adjustable arm that's locked down by thumb screws. The one he has to work with is a basket case that a used machine seller sold us...but it looks like it should really clean up and make a fantastic desk lamp.

So...I have 2 questions...one of which you can already guess:

1. Should it be grounded even though it wouldn't have been in the 40's?

2. He's going to have to replace the socket and all of the wiring anyway. What would be involved in building a lamp base with a switch in it? In particular, I'm wondering how the connections at the switch would be made and would they need to be in some sort of box?

Any lamp experts out there? I think he's got a really cool project, but after this year's fiasco (see my previous post), he'd like to do a little better next year.

Phil

THIS IS NOT THE LAMP....This is an identical lamp currently for sale on eBay...that is in much better shape than the one we have. Picture this cleaned up and mounted to some sort of base to be used as a desk lamp. That's the project.

 

[sberry]

Run a 3 wire cord to it and ground.

 

[rburke65]

I have seen plenty of lamps....desk, floor, etc., with switches in their base and they do not have boxes within the base.

 

[eljefino]

I'd stick a polarized plug on it. Hot is supposed to be the bulb base; neutral the socket. If you want to be truly paranoid or show off you can get a GFI plug like for an air conditioner or hair dryer and splice that on there, but it would be ugly. Edit, I'm having a hard time finding a splice-on GFI plug; they must want them to be purpose-made. You can plug into a purpose-made GFI in-out adaptor like this one but to me that would say you were afraid of your own wiring, and its impermanence would be suspect.

Off topic, but you should find an antique incandescent bulb for it. Maybe a "mazda". Barring that you could buff the logo off a new (clear) bulb and somehow screen a reproduction logo on. Overkill and brownie points, but would be pretty spiffy.

There are some appliances you don't want grounded, like a toaster. The exact reason escapes me, but you can legitimately put a knife in a running, ungrounded toaster and live to tell about it. (but don't try it. )

 

[rockwithjason]

to switch the lamp you break the hot wire and run it thru the switch. do not break the neutral wire. the connections will be dependent on how the switch is made. you can get switches that use wire nuts for the connections. the switch should be enclosed in the base so as not to allow the connections to be touched. grounding would be very simple. use a 3 wire cord as mentioned above and tap a hole in your base for a 10/32 grounding screw. connect the green wire in the cord to that screw and viola you are grounded. a hollow steel base the shape of a bowl would make a nice base and you can glue a piece of felt covered fiber board to the bottom to cover the switch connections and protect the surface it is placed on.

 

[FluxCore]

Like the guy above said. Establish proper polarity, and make sure to ground the metal of the fixture.

For the other guy, my new wallymart toaster has a three prong plug, but even tho it does, I'll never stick a knife in it ...I leave it to the girlfriend to fetch the toast