Pendant light fittings

[john]

This is probably a really stupid question, but hopefully someone can help me out...

I have a pendant light fitting in my lounge (top half, lampshade, bottom half, light bulb), and I managed to separate the two halves by accident when I was changing the bulb. Now that I've done that, I haven't been able to re-attach them.

I have a couple of (blurry) photos of the bottom half:

(8k) (80k)

Basically, the bottom half has two copper "pegs" that sit in the top, and two springs that fit into the pegs. There were also two T-shaped pieces of metal that sat inside the springs, but I've lost one of them. Anyway, the idea seems to be that you hold the two halves together, and then the springs squash between the pegs in each half. Then what? I'd expect them to screw together (assuming that I unscrewed it by accident in the dark), but there's no thread for that. What I've found so far is that I push them together, then the whole arrangement goes "ping" and scatters small pieces of metal across my floor (which is how I lost one of the T-shaped bits).

I have a couple of other pendant fittings (with/without lampshade), and I could take one of them apart to see how it worked, but I'm not sure whether that would make the problem worse. Presumably these things are supposed to come apart (to install the lampshade), so should go back together. I've also had a look round B&Q, in the hope that I could just buy a new fitting (assuming that they're pretty cheap), but all I could find were more elaborate things (e.g. "chandalier style light fitting to sit on top of pendant").

I'm sure this is something that's blatantly obvious to everyone else, so I'd feel stupid if I had to call out an electrician, but I'm also fed up of sitting in the dark so I'm having to swallow my pride. (I've done several websearches, but couldn't find any answers, so I do apologise if it's come up before.)

Thanks in advance,

John

[Rob Morley]

It's knackered - it was either glued/welded together, or it was threaded but the threaded bit has sheared off. You should be able to buy a replacement fitting in a shed - some places may only sell them with the rose and flex already fitted. They're probably with sockets and switches rather than in the lighting section. Places like Wilko and Woolies used to sell them, I don't know if they still do.

[John C. Kirk]

Ah, ok, thanks. That's a nuisance, but it's useful to know, and I feel a bit better now that I wasn't being a complete idiot by not being able to reattach the pieces.

John