By Joe Rinaudo
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9
Chapter 10
Since I started my new job at British Car Service, I had more money to invest into my fledgling new business of Antique Lighting.
With my newfound interest in making and restoring old lighting fixtures (thanks to Dave’s inspiration). I started a search for as many catalogs of lighting fixture parts as I could find. The Yorkville Co., Cal-American lamp parts, De Rosa Lamp parts, and several others all of which had a lot of really fantastic old-time lamp parts! I had found old-style electric light sockets and shade holders (for the electric arms). I found reproduction gas keys and gas shade holders (for the gas arms) along with the matching Victorian-style glass shades for them. There were also fancy castings, armbacks, brass turnings, and back plates for Victorian wall sconces. I finally had enough parts to make my first gas-electric wall sconce. Since Dave and I had already made the circle arm for my Laurel and Hardy wall sconce, I now had the resources to buy all of the other parts to make my lamp complete!
Inspiration for circle wall sconce. Laurel and Hardy in “Going Bye-Bye” 1934.
When I showed Dave all of the catalogs that I had received, we were both amazed at all of the old-style lamp parts that were still available. In no time at all Dave and I had selected all of the parts necessary to make the first complete gas-electric wall sconce that I had always wanted. Since it was from a Laurel and Hardy film, I decided to name it the “Laurel”. What a fun and great thing to be able to think up a design based on an original fixture and then actually build it in my own shop! After polishing and clear coating all of the parts, I wired and assembled it with the glass shades. I couldn’t wait to show Dave the finished product!
I arrived at Dave’s house to show him my new creation. Dave’s first comment was somewhat positive. Then the master began his critiquing of the apprentice’s work! He pointed out that the gas valve wasn’t exactly centered at the bottom of the gas arm. The gas shade holder wasn’t exactly dead straight and had not been polarized so that the three fitter screws that held the gas shade were not in a symmetrical position in relation to the fixture. There was run in the clear coat and my polishing wheel did not get into every nook and crevice so these areas were not highly polished enough! At first, I was angry and frustrated at Dave’s seemingly harsh and negative assessment of my first solo creation. Dave went on to say “If you are going to spend the time and effort to do something, DO IT RIGHT!”
I know that I didn’t say a lot after that but just put my poor (apparently) ugly creation back in its box and drove home. On the way home I realized what Dave was telling me in his own “special” way. Once back at my shop, I decided to take the lamp all apart and make all of the corrections that Dave had so abruptly pointed out. Once my Frankenstein was reworked, it looked fantastic! I was now wondering what would Dave think?
So, a couple of days later I drove back to Dave’s shop. I sheepishly brought my lamp back into his shop to see if I had made any kind of changes that the master would approve of. I handed the lamp (wrapped in a towel) to Dave. He looked at me and said, “What is this shit?” I said, “Just unwrap it!” When he pulled the lamp out of the towel, he stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Then he said with a smile “Now this is a lamp!”
The finished “Laurel” gas-electric wall sconce.
If I had learned anything at all by working with Dave it is that he expects you to do your best. I remembered how exacting he had taught me to be with the Fotoplayer restoration. I told Dave I was sorry that I had screwed up the lamp build. Dave said that he had seen me do such nice clean restoration work on the Fotoplayer he was surprised to see the mistakes I had made with the lamp. I told Dave that I was in a hurry to make it because I was eager to see it finished and show it to him. I had, perhaps, cut too many corners. Dave said, “I felt that you needed a kick in the ass to make you realize that making a lamp is no different than restoring a F _ _ king Fotoplayer!” This valuable lesson would stay with me for the rest of my life. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this lesson would also prove to be a very important part of my future of manufacturing unique lamps.
After a few more American Fotoplayer collectors asked me to reproduce console lamps for their Fotoplayers I decided it might be fun to reproduce Victorian lamps. I went through all of the lamp catalogs to see what parts were available that might inspire me to make another unique Victorian lamp.
My mother bragged to one of her friends that I could fix lamps. This friend had a poor old broken ceiling lamp from the turn of the century. It was a four-arm ceiling fixture with one arm broken. She said that she had found it in a junk store. Since I couldn’t easily reproduce this arm with my “pulley” method. I decided to take it over to Dave to see if he might have an idea as to how to recreate this one arm so it matched the other three. Once Dave saw the fixture, he noticed that all of the arms were not the same shape. They had probably been hand bent so that two arms sort of matched each other as did the other two but each set of two didn’t match the other set. Dave suggested that we make all four arms new so they would be all the same shape. When I asked, “Just how in the hell could we do that?” Dave calmly said, “Build a bending jig of course!” I thought that by changing all four arms I would be changing the originality of the lamp. When I expressed my misgivings to Dave he said “Look, the lamp is a no-value piece of crap! Do you want to hand her back a polished turd or a fine lamp?” In no time at all (as I helped and watched in amazement) Dave cut a piece of ¾ inch plywood to a specific shape, turned out on his wood lathe two wooden pulleys with grooves the size of the tubing, cut a large handle (for bending leverage), Formed a piece of steel strap to hold it all together, drilled it all and assembled it.
Original tube bending jig #1 Made in Dave’s shop.
We bent four arms to the basic shape of the original arms. The only difference was that they all matched! I brought the arms and the bending jig back to my shop and completed the restoration of the lamp. Wow! My first restoration. I must say that my mother’s friend was more than delighted with her new lamp! Dave and I decided to name the jig number 1. As a side note (46 years later) my lighting company still uses old jig number 1! Over the next several years that Dave and I worked together, Dave produced twenty-five more bending jigs that my lighting company has been using for almost fifty years.
Dave and I had many adventures going to the various lamp supply houses in Los Angeles. This was a time before computers so everything was done by hand. Writing up each order and receipt with pen and paper. This took time and there was usually a line at each parts house. One parts house stood out from the rest by its strict rules. It was owned and run by a very grumpy little old man. He and his clerk (who was a few bricks shy of a load) would wait on customers at the front desk. The word on the street was that this owner’s nickname was Grumpy because of his small stature and attitude, some people thought that he resembled Grumpy the dwarf from Snow White. Grumpy was always watching his clerk wait on the customers. You had to stand in line and ask no questions about anything until you got up to the desk. Then, if you had any questions, you could ask Grumpy who would usually add a few verbal insults with his answer. If you misbehaved (in Grumpy’s mind) he would send you to the back of the line. Years later we would all come to know a person like this as the soup Nazi from the Seinfeld show. Since Grumpy had a New York accent he could have been the soup Nazi’s father! Well, I had neglected to warn Dave about the Draconian law of this particular parts house. When you entered this place, you walked by bins and shelves of new lamp parts. You had to bring in numbers for your order or you could look at and take note of the numbers on the bins and shelves. So, when you finally got up to the desk you could ask Grumpy’s clerk to fetch them for you.
When we arrived, Dave walked over to a bin of porcelain light sockets. these bins were on the floor. He picks up a clear plastic bag of twenty sockets to examine them. Before I could warn him, Grumpy shouts at Dave: “DON’T TOUCH THE MERCHANDISE!” All the heads of the people in line look back to see who the latest victim was. Dave disgustedly throws the bag of sockets back down in the bin and I see that a few got broken! Fortunately, a man in line started laughing and a distracted Grumpy shouts: “BE QUIET! THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” Realizing that Grumpy had not thought to check the sockets (because of his scolding the laughing man) we quietly got in line.
Finally, up at the desk, we began to place our order with the clerk. He was a short, heavy-set, but a happy and simple soul. I noticed that Grumpy was not at the desk but was on the phone in his office. His office was directly behind where the clerk was standing so he could keep an eye on everything while he was on the phone. Once I had made it clear to the clerk what my order was all about and this took a little doing. He slowly went away to collect my parts. He finally returns with all of the parts and spreads them out on the desk for my inspection. I am noticing that Grumpy is scowling with clinched teeth from his desk behind the clerk. All the while still on the phone but watching intently what is about to transpire. The clerk lines up ten armbacks with the hole facing us and says “These cute things always remind me of little diver’s helmets.” Now Grumpy, hanging up the phone, is still scowling and getting up from his desk! The helper grabs two of the armbacks (little diver helmets) and starts humming some kind of a hornpipe song while twisting the little “helmets” from side to side and making a boop-boop sound with each turn. Now he is singing: “Boop-boop little diver helmets, boop-boop little diver helmets.” Grumpy rushes up from behind and shouts “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? GET TO WORK!” The clerk, startled by this, screams and throws the little helmets up in the air! There was dead silence. I’m sure that everyone was laughing inside but did not dare show it!
Armbacks, a.k.a., little diver’s helmets.
So, Grumpy pushes his poor clerk out of the way and takes over finishing our order. He adds up everything with a calculator the says “Let’s see if the calculator is correct.” He then proceeds to add up the order with a pencil and paper. As soon as he was finished, I gave him the money, and Dave and I quickly got out of there.
Once back to the safety of Dave’s shop, I decided that the best way to make any future orders with this parts house was to have the order shipped!
To be continued…
