TJ's rain lamp
The following information and photos are by TJ himself.
Background
The first time I saw a rain lamp was in college in a friend-of-a-friend's
apartment. The place was completely retro with lots of interesting stuff,
but his hanging rain lamp was just mind blowing to me. I never forgot about
it and when I finally stumbled upon a rain lamp at the thrift store, I
couldn't help myself. I had to have it. But there was one problem. The
lamp was in really bad shape. It was covered with dust and oil, had some
broken strings, and on top of that I had no clue how to operate one.
So to be honest, the poor thing sat in the corner of my apartment for about
a year, collecting more dust. I had tried to take it apart to clean it, but
the base just wouldn't budge. All I knew is that when I plugged it in, the
motor hummed. One day, out of frustration really (I can't stand not being
able to disassemble and understand something), I decided to take another
chance at cleaning the lamp. So I ended up having to take a hammer to the
poor thing. It turned out that my base and top had been glued
together (looked like Superglue). So now the project was about to get
interesting. Because of the oil and dust combination, I had to use
extremely hot water to release the mixture from the base, lid, holes, and
lines. I ran two baths for the lamp to get her pretty cleaned up, then came
in with tissues and towels to scrape the rest of the dirt off.
While I did this, I had the foliage in a smaller vessel with soap soaking.
I let the foliage soak overnight. To be honest, it was a really messy job.
The debris left in my tub made me regret using it, and also led me to get
out the Chlorox and go to town.
The next day I tested the pump by pouring water in the base and running it
for a couple minutes. It was really exciting to actually see liquid coming
out from the lines, although it was pretty sloppy looking. So I had a good
pump, the vessels were clean, and it was time to fix the broken lines. What
really helped me here was the fact that the manufacturer's design and
components were basically idiot proof. The grommets (eyelets) and string
seem complicated and intimidating, because if you mess with one out of
curiosity, you could endanger the whole project if you break it. But, mine
were broken already, so I went in with flathead screwdriver and some
needlenose pliers, ripped out the grommet, threaded fishing line through the
bottom and pulled tightly back through the top and voilą!
Now I was ready for the first test. I decided to hang the lamp and then fill
her up, just to prevent any accidents. She took 7 pints of oil (I actually
had to run back to the store to get more oil). It definitely was a nail
biter waiting for the oil to drip out the first hole. But after about 10
minutes, I was rewarded and the drips quickly moved around the circle until
finally it was complete. Her name is Venus :).
Specs
height: 3 ft
width: 15 in
chain length: 10 ft
number of eyelets on outer circle (vertical set): 40
number of eyelets on inner circle (angle set): 20
number of pints of oil: 7
Photos
Additional information
Here is some information TJ supplied to me later...
The lamp has a certification sticker from the city of Los Angeles that reads "AL 699563",
but no manufacturer name or date or serial number.
Since Los Angeles was the home of Johnson Industries,
possibly this is a Johnson Industries lamp,
but TJ conjectured it might be a copy made in Mexico by some unknown manufacturer,
which seems more likely to me, too.
The lamp's ivory finish and ivory colored statue are characteristic of Creators, Inc.
rain lamps, but Creators rain lamps tend to be stamped with their name and
even exact dates of manufacture, and their statues I've seen are different than this one,
so this is probably not a Creators rain lamp, despite appearances.
The certification sticker on TJ's lamp.
Also, when TJ obtained this rain lamp,
both the lid and bottom basin were bolted to the central cage part
with a very strong, clear glue.
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Created: January 16, 2006
Updated: April 18, 2007
