Where to get wiring for old chandelier?

[Thomolli]

I have a set of matching antique chandeliers that were in two of the bedrooms when we bought our house. We have redone one of the bedrooms and I want to put this light fixture back but it needs to be rewired. I bought some wire at HD for this purpose and it is too fat to fit through the holes. There is much more plastic coating on the new wire than the old wire. I have been everywhere in town looking for something that will work, to no avail.

I found some nylon covered wire online but it says it is not UL approved and I don't know about using that...

Has anyone had any experience rewiring historic light fixtures or using nylon covered cord? Do you know where I can get the wire I need?

Thanks,

Holli

[phil]

when you get into wire there is solid wire, for where it doesn't need to bend repetitively and braided wire. most of what you will see inside a lamp is braided but you could concievably use solid wire since it isnt' flexing inside the fixture.

wire is rated by thickness or guage, often there is a rating on the insulation to indicate the voltage it is capable of protecting you from.

If you go to an electronics store you can buy little spools of wire, even auto wire might be acceptable and you cna buy a little spool.

What I would do is just look for a thre wire cord off something else, it would probably have three conductors in the wire and be braided wire. Just strip a length of that and you should be ok.
You dont' need a huge diameter of conductor because a light fixture doesn't pull a lot of amperage. often zip cord or lamp cord is used and it can vary in gauge.
if you want ot get technical you can figure out the amperage draw and calculate from that the wire gauge necessary, and the insulation needs to be rated for 110 volts. ,, any common extension cord should suffice, Just strip 3 feet or so and you don't have to go buying stuff. now saying that I suppose you "could possibly" find insulated wire that isn't appropriate but I think if you just strip wire from an extension cord you should be ok.

Old wire turns green or black inside, If you see that the wire is old, dont' use that. the conductors should still be shiny when you strip it.

a wire I like to use is rubber coated wire sold for voltmeters. it has many fine strands and good quality rubber insulation , rated about 600 volts. Its a little overkill but that wire is more flexible. keep in mind if you use rubber wire that it is easily damaged by pulling it over sharp corners and such. the plastic stuff is tougher.

You can also get cloth covered wire. use that if the wires show but if they dont' the plastic insulation should be just fine.

[Seabornman]

You can try http://vintagewireandsupply.com/

[phil]

If the wire is visible and you want the cloth wire you can get it here too
https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/w ... ered-spool

[1918ColonialRevival]

Don't worry about the UL label. Basically all a UL label means is that the manufacturer paid Underwriters an exorbitant amount of money for testing. A lot of the UL labels out there are counterfeit. I've rewired many antique fixtures with cloth wire and have never had any issues.

Wiring for a light fixture is low demand and carries a low amount of current. P=VI, where P is power in Watts, V is Voltage, and I is current in Amps. Say you have a four socket fixture. If you have four 60 watt bulbs in the fixture for a total of 240 watts, solving for I gives you roughly 2 amps.

The sources the other posters mentioned are both good. There's also Sundial Wire.

[MJ1987]

The sources the other posters mentioned are both good. There's also Sundial Wire.

I might be a bit late to the game on this one, but I've used a couple different places including 1000Bulbs and Sundial Wire. Sundial, by far, had the superior selection and better prices. They also shipped quickly and free of change, once I hit $80. Good luck!

[phil]

another way , if the wiring insulation is questionable, you can slip heat shrink over the wires then heat it up with a lighter to shrink it. in some cases it is difficult to remove an entire wire due to access. it comes in different colors. If you wan to make it look old, just allow some soot on it from the lighter and it will blend in. you can add heat shrink to most any wire particularly if you want a little more insulation, to raise the safety factor. You'll find it in 3 foot lengths in the electronics supply places.

If you want to join a wire, do a western union splice , then solder and heat shrink the wire. I never simply twist wires without solder or depend on black tape over connections and I never use wire crimps. use rosin core solder, its for electrical, the acid core flux is for plumbing. the acid can remain and cause havoc.

here's a western union splice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union_splice

If you are working on electric lamps you should also know about the UL knot.
https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-an-un ... ot-1152873

Phil