From the mid 60’s to the mid 80’s Jeep installed Carter Carburetors on many of their vehicles, and for nearly as long, owners have pulled them off and thrown them in the trash. As my wife will happily attest however, I hate throwing things away. I held onto to this carburetor for years, and held it up to numerous projects, only to set it back on the bench and think “maybe next time.” Oddly enough, I’ve had this glass pitcher (that had cracked across the bottom) for nearly as long. Both leaked tremendously, both had been replaced, and both were just too pretty to throw away. Both, it seems, were just waiting to be held together and for the light to go on.
With those elements in place, I began to see layers of detail and complexity that would make this lamp stand apart from my other work. I liked the idea of having the shutter valves open and close, so I made a lever from a wooden file handle and tied it to a pull-chain switch to turn the primary lights on and off. From there I used an old chair base that I found next to a dumpster, a section of sewer vent pipe, and an offset jeep pitman arm to construct the base and vertical support. I then added some flexible copper tube to hide the wiring and secondary light source to illuminate the inside of the vertical support. The culmination of all this is the most mechanically and electrically intricate piece of my work thus far.
9 Bar Welding 