Happy New Year to everyone! Some long time AH readers may remember Steam Vent posts in the past titled "What Grinds My Gears". I've always enjoyed reading them, and posted a few myself. This isn't quite at that level, but it's about something that's bugged me recently. I'll call it, "What Tool Do I Need For This?"
A number of years ago when my wife was in Italy, she bought a ceramic vase that was made into a lamp. It came wired, but had an Italian electric plug, took some unknown type of light bulb, and could only accept European lamp shades.
I figured replacing all the electrical parts with standard American lamp parts would be easier than dealing one-by-one with the plug, the light bulb, and lamp shade. But I didn't do anything about it. Instead, I stashed it in the closet, hoping the closet elves would fix it for me. It remained there – untouched – until two weeks ago, when my wife found it. I had to go get one of those DIY lamp wiring kits. I tried consoling myself by thinking, how hard could this be?
Here's the kit
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RQRYF2E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It was easy,
except for just one step. This step required a simple tool, but I don't know a name for it, nor do I know what it looks like. I'll try and describe the problem.
First, I screwed the 2½" long threaded 1/8ip pipe (I know, it’s called threaded nipple, but it’s easier to say pipe) to the base of the switch housing (2nd from the bottom of the right column of parts in the photo). Then I inserted the harp holder and a rubber washer onto the pipe below the switch housing, and dropped it through the hole in the top of lamp vase.
Next I put a hex nut (threaded to fit the pipe) over the wire, and ran the wire up through the bottom of the ceramic vase, through the pipe, and out the top. I thought that hex nut would be easy to thread and tighten because it took a ½” nut driver. That's where I ran into the problem. It didn't require any force, tightening the nut with unaided fingers would work – if I could only reach it. The lamp vase was too long for me to use any tool I had, and the opening at the bottom was too small for my hand to get in to reach the nut.
No open-end wrench would work because the hollow 2½" long pipe had the wire coming out of it, getting in the way. My open-end wrenches are flat, and this job required an open end wrench with a large off-set. Is there such a thing as a small off-set open-end nut driver?
I tried using a ½" socket wrench, but the pipe was too long and too wide for that short socket to reach very far. Again, that wire got in the way. My socket set has ¼" drive. Maybe if I had a much longer socket, like a spark plug wrench, or a socket with a drive larger than ¼", I might have been able to reach the nut. But I don’t have anything like that.
Eventually, after much frustration, I got the nut tightened by using a long flat bladed screw driver and some masking tape. I covered the blade with masking tape – sticky side out – and struggled to rotate that damn nut until it was tight. I must have taken me 15-20 minutes, and most of that time I was struggling to learn the right touch to get it to work at all.
I've spent some time looking at tools on Amazon and at Lowe's, but I can't find anything that might work. I doubt if I'll do another job like that anytime soon, but I'm curious and frustrated about What Tool Do I Need For This?
Any ideas?
