How To Repaire Table Top Lamp

Photo by Lizzie Himmel

Can customers browse in your warehouse?

[Laughs] I don't know that they'd really want to. We have 7,000 items, in bins and boxes to the ceilings. Whatever you can think of is here, from a two-cent lock washer on up to the hundred-dollar glass shades. We have a room full of crystals. We have one aisle that's almost all for chains. We even have hexagonal links and flowery links molded from antiques. If you don't see what you need on the site, e‑mail us a description of it or a picture or a drawing of something like it, and be patient. We ship anywhere in the world—there's a restaurant designer in Japan who calls me all the time.

What are people buying lately?

We've been around since at least 1913, so we've seen it all. Until just recently, everybody wanted everything nickel-plated. Now the trend is swinging back to polished brass, with gold cords. And we're seeing less demand for harps and finials. People want clusters of sockets—that's considered the sign of a quality lamp instead of a harp—and no tchotchke on top that would define or overwhelm the design of the shade.

What's your best seller?

Glass shades. Kids, cats, and cleaning, those are the big threats to the glass, we always say. We have shades in every shape and color. We have antiques with their original stickers, and new ones made in hundred-year-old molds.

What's the weirdest request you've ever gotten?

I get e‑mails from people who've found a pair of antlers in the woods and want to make it into a chandelier. It could be an oil lamp question, or an electronic-ballasted-halogen-under-the-cabinet question.

What are the most common mistakes people make when buying lamp parts?

They order the wrong thread size—even though we have a chart with life-size measurements on our Web site [www.GrandBrass.com]. Or they decide to hang a ceiling fixture from a cord, which looks really cool but won't last, and the fixture will never hang quite straight anyway. Hanging from a pipe is a much better idea. And if somebody has a lamp cord that's 20 years old or less, it's probably made of PVC, which lasts forever, but older than that, you'll see fraying and it should be replaced.

Do you design anything yourselves?

We have our own greatly improved bulb socket with porcelain interiors. Plastic sockets last at most two years. We even improved the pull chain. Ours has a nice solid metal ball at the end instead of a flimsy little bell.

Any parts there for track lights?

No, and we've never had them. Most of the high-tech stuff doesn't last anyway. It's throwaway, and you can't get the parts anymore. We get customers who've taken down the track and are putting back up an old-fashioned fixture that's been working for a hundred years and is still going.

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