Rewiring oldish pendant... need some help

15 years ago

I bought this 1970's light from craigslist:

I'm planning to put it over my kitchen sink, but it's too short. I've taken it apart. Initially I thought I could just rewire using the original porcelain socket, but the wires are not screwed down, they are permanently crimped.

So, I've bought a new socket and got lamp wire. This part is all fairly easy. My problem is the grounding wire. The old fixture had a bare copper wire as shown above on the left. I assume that this is still required for pendant lights, but I can't seem to find bare grounding wire in this gauge. I saw the big kind and the green wrapped kind at Lowes, but that's it. I called for help at the store, but the guy said to just strip the lamp wire and use that. That seems a bit suspect to me. Is this what people do? Or do I just need to keep looking for the grounding wire?

Thanks!

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Comments (3)

triphase
15 years ago
If you have a metal box that you are mounting this to, and it has a house ground in the box, wrap that house ground on the ground screw on the mounting kit for this lamp, and use that. This will ground the light.

Mike
roadbike
15 years ago
Stranded lamp wire will work as long as you can secure it with the appropriate screws. Grounding wire is typically solid wire but either will work.
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brickeyee
15 years ago
"Grounding wire is typically solid wire but either will work."

Solid wiure is rarely used in fixtures.
There is simply to much chance of breakage from assembly and handling.

The grounding wire for a pendent fixture is normally bare stranded wire.

Two conductor cord is used for the hot and neutral (temperature rating determines the insulation required) and a #18 stranded bare wire is the ground.