DIYbanter - View Single Post - Rewring a chandelier: snaking wires through the arms

wrote:
I am trying to rewire a 5 arm brass chandelier. The original wiring is
16 ga stranded wire which was hard wired to the fixtures (several of
which are defective which is why I am rewiring).

One end of the arm has a straight run from the entry hole but then
there's a sharp bend which I can't negotiate by pushing the wire. If I
start from the other end (which has an immediate 90 degree turn through
a narrow hole) I am able to push one stranded conductor completely
through the arm, but I am unable to get the second conductor to get
past the 90 degree turn. I've tried doing this using the original
wiring (which I plan to replace).

I've tried 2 conductor lamp wire but that's too wide. I've tried using
conduit lube but that doesn't seem to help. I don't have any 18 ga
stranded wire on hand, but the diameter of stranded wire including its
jacket appears not to vary with gauge.

Is there some trick I am missing here?

thanks

Sounds like it's a pretty tight fit.

A couple suggestions:

Can you take the arms apart somehow? Sometimes it's more than one
piece threaded together.

If you can get one one wire or string or anything through the arm, then
use that to pull your two wires through. The key to that working will
be to figure out a way to attach your two wires to your pulling wire in
a way that doesn't increase the diameter of the connection too much.
To do this, you may want to strip the insulation off the ends of your
two wires before you connect to the pulling wire. That way you are just
dealing with the diameter of the wire itself, rather than the diameter
including the insulation where you make the connection for pulling.

Ken