By Joe Rinaudo

CHAPTER 1   CHAPTER 2   CHAPTER 3   CHAPTER 4  CHAPTER 5   CHAPTER 6   CHAPTER 7  CHAPTER 8   CHAPTER 9

Chapter 10

Since I started my new job at British Car Service, I had more money to invest into my fledgling new business of Antique Lighting. 

With my newfound interest in making and restoring old lighting fixtures (thanks to Dave’s inspiration).  I started a search for as many catalogs of lighting fixture parts as I could find. The Yorkville Co., Cal-American lamp parts, De Rosa Lamp parts, and several others all of which had a lot of really fantastic old-time lamp parts! I had found old-style  electric light sockets and shade holders (for the electric arms). I found reproduction gas keys and gas shade holders (for the gas arms) along with the matching Victorian-style glass shades for them. There were also fancy castings, armbacks, brass turnings, and back plates for Victorian wall sconces.  I finally had enough parts to make my first gas-electric wall sconce. Since Dave and I had already made the circle arm for my Laurel and Hardy wall sconce, I now had the resources to buy all of the other parts to make my lamp complete!

Inspiration for circle wall sconce. Laurel and Hardy in “Going Bye-Bye” 1934.

When I showed Dave all of the catalogs that I had received, we were both amazed at all of the old-style lamp parts that were still available. In no time at all Dave and I had selected all of the parts necessary to make the first complete gas-electric wall sconce that I had always wanted. Since it was from a Laurel and Hardy film, I decided to name it the “Laurel”. What a fun and great thing to be able to think up a design based on an original fixture and then actually build it in my own shop! After polishing and clear coating all of the parts, I wired and assembled it with the glass shades. I couldn’t wait to show Dave the finished product!

I arrived at Dave’s house to show him my new creation. Dave’s first comment was somewhat positive. Then the master began his critiquing of the apprentice’s work!  He pointed out that the gas valve wasn’t exactly centered at the bottom of the gas arm. The gas shade holder wasn’t exactly dead straight and had not been polarized so that the three fitter screws that held the gas shade were not in a symmetrical position in relation to the fixture. There was run in the clear coat and my polishing wheel did not get into every nook and crevice so these areas were not highly polished enough! At first, I was angry and frustrated at Dave’s seemingly harsh and negative assessment of my first solo creation. Dave went on to say “If you are going to spend the time and effort to do something, DO IT RIGHT!” 

I know that I didn’t say a lot after that but just put my poor (apparently) ugly creation back in its box and drove home. On the way home I realized what Dave was telling me in his own “special” way. Once back at my shop, I decided to take the lamp all apart and make all of the corrections that Dave had so abruptly pointed out. Once my Frankenstein was reworked, it looked fantastic! I was now wondering what would Dave think?

So, a couple of days later I drove back to Dave’s shop. I sheepishly brought my lamp back into his shop to see if I had made any kind of changes that the master would approve of.  I handed the lamp (wrapped in a towel) to Dave. He looked at me and said, “What is this shit?” I said, “Just unwrap it!” When he pulled the lamp out of the towel, he stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Then he said with a smile “Now this is a lamp!”

The finished “Laurel” gas-electric wall sconce.

If I had learned anything at all by working with Dave it is that he expects you to do your best. I remembered how exacting he had taught me to be with the Fotoplayer restoration.  I told Dave I was sorry that I had screwed up the lamp build. Dave said that he had seen me do such nice clean restoration work on the Fotoplayer he was surprised to see the mistakes I had made with the lamp. I told Dave that I was in a hurry to make it because I was eager to see it finished and show it to him. I had, perhaps, cut too many corners.  Dave said, “I felt that you needed a kick in the ass to make you realize that making a lamp is no different than restoring a F _ _ king Fotoplayer!” This valuable lesson would stay with me for the rest of my life. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this lesson would also prove to be a very important part of my future of manufacturing unique lamps.

After a few more American Fotoplayer collectors asked me to reproduce console lamps for their Fotoplayers I decided it might be fun to reproduce Victorian lamps. I went through all of the lamp catalogs to see what parts were available that might inspire me to make another unique Victorian lamp. 

My mother bragged to one of her friends that I could fix lamps. This friend had a poor old broken ceiling lamp from the turn of the century. It was a four-arm ceiling fixture with one arm broken. She said that  she had found it in a junk store. Since I couldn’t easily reproduce this arm with my “pulley” method. I decided to take it over to Dave to see if he might have an idea as to how to recreate this one arm so it matched the other three. Once Dave saw the fixture, he noticed that all of the arms were not the same shape. They had probably been hand bent so that two arms sort of matched each other as did the other two but each set of two didn’t match the other set. Dave suggested that we make all four arms new so they would be all the same shape. When I asked, “Just how in the hell could we do that?” Dave calmly said, “Build a bending jig of course!” I thought that by changing all four arms I would be changing the originality of the lamp. When I expressed my misgivings to Dave he said “Look, the lamp is a no-value piece of crap! Do you want to hand her back a polished turd or a fine lamp?” In no time at all (as I helped and watched in amazement) Dave cut a piece of ¾ inch plywood to a specific shape, turned out on his wood lathe two wooden pulleys with grooves the size of the tubing, cut a large handle (for bending leverage), Formed a piece of steel strap to hold it all together, drilled it all and assembled it. 

Original tube bending jig #1 Made in Dave’s shop.

We bent four arms to the basic shape of the original arms. The only difference was that they all matched! I brought the arms and the bending jig back to my shop and completed the restoration of the lamp. Wow! My first restoration. I must say that my mother’s friend was more than delighted with her new lamp! Dave and I decided to name the jig number 1. As a side note (46 years later) my lighting company still uses old jig number 1!  Over the next several years that Dave and I worked together, Dave produced twenty-five more bending jigs that my lighting company has been using for almost fifty years. 

Dave and I had many adventures going to the various lamp supply houses in Los Angeles. This was a time before computers so everything was done by hand. Writing up each order and receipt with pen and paper. This took time and there was usually a line at each parts house. One parts house stood out from the rest by its strict rules. It was owned and run by a very grumpy little old man. He and his clerk (who was a few bricks shy of a load) would wait on customers at the front desk. The word on the street was that this owner’s nickname was Grumpy because of his small stature and attitude, some people thought that he resembled Grumpy the dwarf from Snow White. Grumpy was always watching his clerk wait on the customers. You had to stand in line and ask no questions about anything until you got up to the desk. Then, if you had any questions, you could ask Grumpy who would usually add a few verbal insults with his answer. If you misbehaved (in Grumpy’s mind) he would send you to the back of the line. Years later we would all come to know a person like this as the soup Nazi from the Seinfeld show. Since Grumpy had a New York accent he could have been the soup Nazi’s father! Well, I had neglected to warn Dave about the Draconian law of this particular parts house. When you entered this place, you walked by bins and shelves of new lamp parts. You had to bring in numbers for your order or you could look at and take note of the numbers on the bins and shelves. So, when you finally got up to the desk you could ask Grumpy’s clerk to fetch them for you. 

When we arrived, Dave walked over to a bin of porcelain light sockets. these bins were on the floor. He picks up a clear plastic bag of twenty sockets to examine them. Before I could warn him, Grumpy shouts at Dave: “DON’T TOUCH THE MERCHANDISE!” All the heads of the people in line look back to see who the latest victim was. Dave disgustedly throws the bag of sockets back down in the bin and I see that a few got broken! Fortunately, a man in line started laughing and a distracted Grumpy shouts: “BE QUIET! THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” Realizing that Grumpy had not thought to check the sockets (because of his scolding the laughing man) we quietly got in line. 

Finally, up at the desk, we began to place our order with the clerk. He was a short, heavy-set, but a happy and simple soul. I noticed that Grumpy was not at the desk but was on the phone in his office. His office was directly behind where the clerk was standing so he could keep an eye on everything while he was on the phone. Once I had made it clear to the clerk what my order was all about and this took a little doing. He slowly went away to collect my parts. He finally returns with all of the parts and spreads them out on the desk for my inspection. I am noticing that Grumpy is scowling with clinched teeth from his desk behind the clerk.  All the while still on the phone but watching intently what is about to transpire. The clerk lines up ten armbacks with the hole facing us and says “These cute things always remind me of little diver’s helmets.” Now Grumpy, hanging up the phone, is still scowling and getting up from his desk! The helper grabs two of the armbacks (little diver helmets) and starts humming some kind of a hornpipe song while twisting the little “helmets” from side to side and making a boop-boop sound with each turn. Now he is singing: “Boop-boop little diver helmets, boop-boop little diver helmets.”  Grumpy rushes up from behind and shouts “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? GET TO WORK!” The clerk, startled by this, screams and throws the little helmets up in the air! There was dead silence. I’m sure that everyone was laughing inside but did not dare show it!

Armbacks, a.k.a., little diver’s helmets.

So, Grumpy pushes his poor clerk out of the way and takes over finishing our order. He adds up everything with a calculator the says “Let’s see if the calculator is correct.” He then proceeds to add up the order with a pencil and paper. As soon as he was finished, I gave him the money, and Dave and I quickly got out of there. 

Once back to the safety of Dave’s shop, I decided that the best way to make any future orders with this parts house was to have the order shipped!

To be continued…

Do You Have
— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —

Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.

Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.

Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!

By Joe Rinaudo

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7   CHAPTER 8

Chapter 9

The next day I drove over to Dave’s house to tell him all about my experience with Mr. Sennett and to show him the lamp that Sennett made for my Fotoplayer.

Dave told me that my next step is to find all the other parts that are needed to finish the lamp. We looked up the company that Mr. Sennett had told me about. It was Crystal Lamp Parts in Los Angeles. I called them up and asked how I could purchase lamp parts from them and get a catalog. I was told that I had to bring in to them my resale permit and business information before I could become a customer. I asked Dave how does one get a resale permit. Dave said “Just go to your local State Board of Equalization office and ask for one!” I told Dave that seemed too simple and that there had to be more to it. Dave said “It’s simpler than you think so Just DO it!”

A couple of days later, on July 14, 1976, I drove down to the State Board office and requested a resale permit. When the nice lady at the front desk asked me what kind of business I had, I didn’t really know what to say. So, I just blurted out, “Piano lamp Manufacture.” I thought that if I could get a permit and then get the parts for my Fotoplayer lamp I could just throw the permit away and that would be that. What use would I have to make any more lamps for American Fotoplayers?  The nice lady returned with a form for me to fill out. When I finished that she asked for a $10.00 fee and handed me the permit! That seemed too easy!

I went down to Crystal Lamp Parts and got registered as a customer and received a catalog. I then went over to Dave’s to show him my new permit and catalog. We both looked through the catalog and were amazed by all of the cool lamp parts that were available.

I was always fascinated by the Victorian gas and electric lamps that I had seen in old movies. These were lighting fixtures (manufactured around 1890 – 1915) that used real gas light and the new-fangled electricity on the same fixture! There was one in particular that I had always liked and wanted to own but was never able to find. It was a gas-electric wall sconce in a Laurel and Hardy film called “Going Bye Bye”. It was really cool because it had two bent arms that formed a perfect circle. One arm that was half of the circle had a gas fitting which aimed up at the ceiling and the other half of the circle aimed down toward the floor with an electric socket. Both had beautiful Victorian matching glass shades attached. The larger being the gas and the smaller one the electric. I purchased some 3/8” brass tubing from the parts supplier and tried to bend it over an old fan belt pulley. After much struggling, I had two arms that made a perfect circle! Since both arms were attached to a round ball fitting called an armback, I had no way of attaching them. At this time, I was not well versed in cold or silver soldering. This would be the easy way to attach them. So, I tried threading them but soon realized that if I tried to screw both into the armback at the same time the arms that formed a circle would hit each other preventing them to be threaded into the armback. When I showed my problem to Dave he just said: “Why don’t you thread one arm with right hand and the other with left hand threads?” Why does Dave always make the solution to a problem so easy?

I purchased a left-hand tap and die for the 3/8” tubing. Dave showed me how to thread and tap one side of the armback left while the other was right. We then screwed both arms into the armback at the same time and viola, the circle arm was complete! Dave showed me how to tweak the attached arms to a perfect circle and solder them to the armback so they can’t move.  This was a great new experience for me and a hell of a lot of fun! I remembered Mr. Sennett’s words about the lamp manufacturing business being a good one to get into.

A few weeks earlier on July Fourth 1976, on the bicentennial of the United States a very wonderful thing happened (besides the bicentennial). The piano and some of the sound effects as well as the bass organ to the Fotoplayer played for the first time! The treble organ portion of the Fotoplayer was almost in playing condition. After Dave showed me how to voice and tune the bass wooden organ pipes, I was ready to tackle the restoration of the treble wooden flute and metal violin pipes. I was really anxious to hear the treble organ speak after about 40 years of being silent but there was still a lingering problem. One of the small wooden pipes was missing and several of the violin (metal) pipes were badly bent and broken. Dave said that he had a friend who might be able to help me.  This friend was Mr. Pete Sieker of Abbott & Sieker organ builders. Dave said that we should go pay Pete a visit. Dave said that Pete was a very busy man but he might be willing to help reproduce the missing pipe from my Fotoplayer. So, Dave took me to meet Mr. Sieker at his organ building shop and what a place this was! It was like an old German work shop with organ pipes and parts all over with many unique organ building tools. The shop was very clean and orderly with tools and equipment all neatly organized (pun intended). Pete was a very friendly and humble man. He looked the part of an old-world German craftsman. He was kind of heavy set and wore suspenders and had a heavy German accent. During our visit Dave asked Pete if he could help me by manufacturing the small missing wooden pipe. Pete said that if we brought him the pipe on either side of the missing one and let him know what pressure the organ is voiced for, he would see what he could do.  In the middle of Pete’s shop stood a beautiful pipe organ that he was building from scratch. This was a beautifully made pipe organ. What a magnificent craftsman Pete was!

So, I gave Dave the two companion pipes on either side of the missing one so Pete could make the copy. About two weeks later Dave brought me a perfect reproduction of the missing pipe!  After we finished it with orange shellack and leathered the stopper it sounded and looked just like the others. I asked Dave how much did Pete want for the fantastic work he did on reproducing my missing pipe. I think Dave said something like “How about twenty dollars!”  I then thought if we could get Pete to restore all of the bent and broken metal violin pipes they would be just like new. I asked Dave if he could talk to Pete about this. So, Dave took all of my violin pipes to see if Pete would be willing to take on this project.  

About two weeks later Dave returned with a box of my like new violin pipes! They were all cleaned, revoiced and all of the broken miters were perfectly repaired! I thought that the restoration of these 38 pipes would cost a lot but, much to my surprise, Dave said that Pete wanted only fifty dollars. By August of 1976 the treble organ of the Fotoplayer roared to life. So for the first time in forty-six years she was singing again! My Fotoplayer was one of the last ones built and was used in a theater from 1926 (the year that the American Photoplayer Co. went bankrupt) to 1930. When the theater converted to sound and installed a large screen, the Fotoplayer was sealed up under an expanded stage. Like King TUT’s tomb, only to be discovered many years later when the theater was being demolished in 1973.

Now with the Fotoplayer playing, my attention turned to finishing the lamp over the piano console. I had purchased all of the parts that were needed to make the lamp complete. There was a matter of polishing and finishing the lamp. I asked Dave how this might be done. Dave reminded me of the brass piano roll rewind striker plate that he had given me several years ago when we first met at Carty Piano. He asked if I remembered that he polished and lacquered it for me. When I said yes, he told me that he would like to show me how to polish my Fotoplayer console lamp. We went over to an electric motor mounted on a very heavy metal base. The motor had two arbors or arms. One on each side that had round buffing wheels attached. He started this thing up and I had to jump back as it kind of growled and shuddered to life with a great whirring sound! Dave showed me how to polish only on the bottom half of the wheel so the part being polished does not get grabbed by the wheel and thrown back at me or flung into the twilight zone! (This happened a few times as I was attempting to learn the craft).  One wheel was for teardown and the other was to finely polish the parts after the teardown. In no time at all we had polished and lacquered all of the Fotoplayer lamp parts.

I started thinking about my Laurel & Hardy gas-electric wall sconce as the next lamp project. I started looking for other lamp suppliers that might have different parts or more unusual Victorian type parts. I ended up with several catalogs that had some great stuff! This showed me that I could build almost any kind of Victorian lamp that I might want to.

I thought, I now need a shop like Dave to experiment with any antique lighting project that I might want to do. So, my father and I built a small eight by twelve foot shop in the back yard of my parent’s house. This consisted of 2X4 framing covered with cheap press board and a flat roof. There was a work bench against one twelve foot wall and shelving on the other. Because of the limited space, I needed a way to store tools that didn’t take up much room. A good friend of mine, Dave Feldman, had just the answer for this problem. Above the bench he helped me install pegboard so all of the tools could be stored neatly and be found at a glance.

Dave Hartman helped me find buffing supplies and an old buffing machine. I purchased a belt grinder and a drill press. I went to garage sales and found some great tools. This made me very proud and excited to have a shop similar to Dave’s. although not as grand and complete as Dave’s shop it was still a good start.

At this time, I was still working in the kitchen at Glendale Memorial Hospital. I had made friends with Dick Van Hoosebecause he had trained me when I first started working there. We both attended the same high school. Dick was always fascinated by my Model A Ford. Soon he purchased one and we were touring buddies. Driving our Model A Fords through Griffith Park on our lunch breaks. Dick got a job at a British car repair shop but we still kept in touch.

One day Dick came over to hear the Fotoplayer which he really loved. He told me that he purchased the repair shop where he was working and offered me a job for considerably more money as a British car mechanic! I told him that I didn’t know anything about British cars and the only experience that I have ever had was keeping my Model A running. Dick told me that the way I showed him how to work on his Model A and how I had kept mine in such good running condition proved to him that I would make a good mechanic. This was only a small part of his decision to hire me. He told me that the real reason he wanted to hire me was, “Anyone who could learn to rebuild an American Fotoplayer and keep it playing in top shape would make a greatmechanic!”

I took the Job. (Thank you, Dave!)

To be continued…

Do You Have
— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —

Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.

Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.

Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!