Mad Phil asked me to replace the bulb in a lamp along the walkway to their garage, which turned into a bit of a circus: the bulb had shattered, leaving only the base in the socket. After clearing away the rubble, I was confronted with this:
I removed the entire lamp housing, laid it out on my workbench, and eventually resorted to jamming needle-nose pliers into the base and forcibly unscrewing it. That worked:
Fortunately, the aluminum lamp base had corroded against the brass socket, not the other way around, so buffing the socket with a brass wheel in a Dremel handset and polishing the base contacts brought it back to life.
Reassemble the lamp and it’s all good…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
9 responses to “Outdoor Lamp Replacement”
Ed –
Next time try a whittled down potato. Jam it in the broken socket and unscrew it like a surrogate bulb. I lived in a party house in college – we had a lot of knocked over lamps.
Sean
That’s a great idea for a broken bulb! I like it…
This one was firmly corroded and resisted everything I tried, short of the needlenose pliers. It would have sneered at a potato, although if I’d known that trick, I’d have definitely used it along the way.
I’ve heard that one as well just never had to try it so far. So folks might need a reminder to turn the power off or at least make sure the switch was off. Although once they hear the crackle of burning potato that should be enough ;-)
When we moved in here, the light in the oven did not work. So I picked up an appliance bulb and went to replace it. Of course the base was stuck. After working on it a while the old bulb eventually came out in my hand, leaving the base secure in the socket.All this is happening in the back corner of the dark oven. So I end up getting the needle-nose pliers and digging and tearing the old bulb base out of the socket.
Pretty boring and predictable story . . . . until I put the new bulb in and it lit immediately. I had done all that digging and tearing in a live socket and never gotten a spark or shock :)
The Force is strong with you…
Not lightbulbs, but I’ve had the opposite happen a few times. I thought I had the power off and did work, and got zapped. Last time, I was in a hurry and forgot to kill the breaker when I was swapping out an outlet. Other times, I ran into some creative wiring (circa 1951) in my mother’s house. Pulled the main fuse to do a kitchen light fixture after I discovered a second (live) circuit in the same box. !@%$^
Never got hurt, maybe just good luck…
Mad Phil taught me to always measure all the conductors for voltage after killing the power and before proceeding: kept me from frying my bacon a few times, he did…
As a final confirmation that the power is off, I ground the conductors to the side of the electrical box with a screwdriver. If the power is turned off like I figure it should be, there shouldn’t be any fireworks, right?
You probably have such confidence in your work that you don’t even squint… [grin]