Kerosene to Electric Conversion: Wall Sconce
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Kerosene to Electric Conversion: Wall Sconce
During the removal of the god awful 1960's decor in our Living room, we decided on a 1930's - 40's theme. We didn't get power until 1943, so we had a lot of Kerosene table and wall lamps and wall brackets in the house. So we decided to electrify a couple wall mount lamps as sconces, flanking a period mirror.
Items required would be the wall brackets, wall mounts, suitable Kerosene Founts, electric conversion "burners" and 3" x 8" chimneys.
We had the lamps, and swing mounts but the wall mounting brackets were long gone. Ebay solved that problem with good quality repo's.
We didn't want the sconces to look like a Kerosene lamp that a large bulb was plopped into, like everyone else does. We were shooting for a realistic look. We found the C9 LED Christmas bulbs here:
https://www.holiday-light-express.com/C9_SMD_bulbs.php, the Yellow ones. They give a nearly perfect representation of a burning Kerosene lamp.
The Sconce, Close Up
This is how one of the sconce's looks during the daytime.
The Sconce's, at Night
They provide a bit of ambient light and really set the tone of the Living room.
The Sconce's, at Night, Close Up
From a distance, they kind of look realistic.
The C9 Christmas Tree LED Bulb
As you can see, the draw is only 0.58 watt!
Making the Christmas Bulb (E17) Fit an E26 (Medium) Socket
You will need a Intermediate to E26 (Medium) socket adapter as shown. Here is one source:
https://www.amazon.com/MEDIUM-INTERMEDIATE-SOCKET-ADAPTER-INDUSTRIAL/dp/B0067BR44Q
Our Family's Wall Swing Mount
All we need now is the wall mount.
Minor Fitment Problem!
The Repo wall bracket and our swing mount don't exactly fit well together.
Measurements and Some Cipherin'
Measuring the bracket hole against the swing mount support.
A Bit of Plumbing
We discovered that a piece of 3/8" copper pipe fit quite well inside the wall bracket and when the copper pipe was drilled out to the size of our swing bracket, it slid on the swing bracket and then into the repo wall bracket, and everything fit together quite well!
Repo Reflectors
These repo reflectors are wide area reflectors constructed from polished stainless steel and are a faithful reproduction of the vintage rusted Tin reflectors.
Note that vintage Mercury reflectors are concentrated reflectors and cost 6 - 8 times more!
Mounting the Stainless Steel Reflectors
Our swing bracket's have a too short reflector mount, so a length of 3/8" copper pipe was used as an extender.
Well that is our vintage wall sconces. They fire up every night at dusk via Home Automation and provide the ambience we were looking for.
And by swapping out the electric burners for #2 Kerosene burners, they can still be utilized when the power is out.