On Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 11:45:40 AM UTC-5, Paul K. Dickman wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

Grease is an excellent idea. On a similar theme, I've been replacing
corroded light bulbs (with broken bulbs) in 2 different ladies' houses
recently and have used a skosh of either white lithium or vaseline on
the sockets and bases I'm putting the bulbs in. They won't have
another broken bulb again and all those gawdawful incans will be easy
to change from now on. One lady got so rambunctious that she ripped
up the socket base, too. This on a ladder 10' up in her house. She
had the concept OK, but you''re only supposed to put the needle nose
pliers on the broken bulb base and twist. She got both. Aluminum on
aluminum creates a sticky problem.


I use NO-OX grease, the stuff you use for Al wire. Mostly because I bought a
giant tube of it 20 years ago and it's still in my electric toolkit and
nearly full.

Somewhere, decades ago, they started making the bases on cheap bulbs out of
aluminum.
This wasn't a problem because they made the screw shell in the socket out of
brass or nickle.

Then they started cheaping out on the sockets too. Al on Al (particularly in
a base up configuration) is a recipe for problems.

A lot of people still think that Al is a problem anywhere near current.