At a junk sale one day, I happened on an old gas nozzle that looked lonesome and needed a home. As soon as I saw it I thought, "lamp!" So, it had to come home with me.

The materials used for this project included an old gas nozzle, light socket, lamp cord and switch, a threaded lamp stem & nuts, scrap piece of copper tubing, Gorilla Glue, primer, paint, scrap wood, and various wood screws. I also used primer, paint, stain, and varnish.

Tools used were a pipe wrench, drill & bits, band saw (any saw will do),and a screwdriver.

This is an easy project and can be easily finished in a day or two -- even allowing for paint to dry!

Step 1: Preparing the Nozzle

The extension for the nozzle was missing, so I made a new one from a piece of scrap copper tubing. It was a press fit, so I just tapped it on with a hammer (1st photo).

Since I would have to route the lamp cord through the inside of the gas nozzle, I removed the valve from the nozzle. This was easy -- I removed the fitting from the top of the nozzle and simply pulled out the spring and the valve (2nd photo). This gave me plenty of room for the lamp cord.

I wanted to run the lamp cord out of the base of the lamp, so I drilled a hole in the bottom fitting (3rd photo) to allow the cord to exit.

My plan was to mount the nozzle to a wood base, so I cut a wooden plug and glued it into the bottom fitting (4th photo). This would allow me to run a screw up from the base of the lamp to attach the nozzle to the base.

Step 2: Priming & Painting

I used a spray primer followed by a black hammered finish, following the directions for prepping and painting on the paint cans. The photo shows the nozzle drying after applying the primer.

Step 3: Electrical Stuff

After running the lamp cord through the nozzle (starting from the bottom and coming out the top), I assembled the parts I needed to mount the socket. I used a threaded lamp tube (from an old lamp), and added a spacer from my junk box that would allow the assembly to slide into the copper tube. After wiring the socket to the lamp cord, I coated this spacer with Gorilla Glue and held it in place (fitted inside the copper tube) until the glue expanded and set.

Step 4: Making the Base

The first part of the base was the wedged shaped piece shown in the 1st photo. This piece sets the angle that I wanted the nozzle to be on the lamp base. Note the long screw sticking through the center of this wedge -- this screw was used to fasten the wedge to the wood plug I placed in the bottom fitting of the nozzle.

The 2nd photo shows the wedge piece screwed to the bottom part of the base. After making these pieces, I stained and varnished them.