Found a half-melted soldering iron in a lamp I was rewiring yesterday

Picked up an old floor lamp from a garage sale for $5, and when I opened the base there was a cheap iron stuck to the wires with melted plastic all around it. How do you even get that far into a project and just leave it like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace50814d ago

My buddy Dave found basically the same thing inside an antique lamp he bought at an estate sale last summer. He said there were burn marks all the way up the wire and the plastic had dripped down like candle wax. The previous owner must have gotten frustrated, the iron slipped, and they just said "forget it" and shoved the base back on. Dave spent a whole weekend replacing the wiring and scraping melted plastic out with a screwdriver. He still brings it up anytime someone mentions garage sale finds.

jamesm4814d ago

Nah for real, my buddy Chris had a similar nightmare with a table lamp from a thrift store. He plugged it in and the whole thing started smoking within like 30 seconds. He pulled the base off and the wires were just bare copper wrapped in electrical tape hanging loose inside. Someone had replaced the socket but stripped way too much insulation off. He said it looked like the tape had melted and was super sticky like goo. He had to throw the whole thing away cause it was too far gone to fix and he didn't trust it. Now he brings a flashlight to every flea market just to peek inside lamp bases before buying anything.