Street Find Arc Lamp

Sometime over the summer we found this arc lamp on our drive through the Outer Sunset on our way to the beach.

I'm not sure what its exact circa is, but I would guess, based on the original shade (which was orange plastic and sadly very damaged) that it is from the late 70's or 80's. It is a knock-off of the original Arco lamp by Achille Castiglioni from 1962. 

The base is stone which was chipped at the bottom. Thankfully the brass upright arms were in great shape and all the hardware was there.

The telescoping arch was in good shape although very dirty and slightly pitted in places.

The swiveling hardware that holds the dome was also still there and not broken.

At first I tried to clean and degrease it with Krud Kutter but eventually just sanded it down with 150 grit sand paper because it had a honed finish anyway.

Aside from the missing dome, this big chip was its biggest drawback.

I know from my furniture restoration days that patching stone isn't impossible. I used two part epoxy and colored it with pure white pigment that I bought from the art store. I thought I might add a slight bit of brown with some inks I have in my art supplies but skipped that in the end. I can add some veining to the epoxy with a brown sharpie later if I am feeling anal.

To create a dam which the epoxy could flow into, I clamped some acrylic blocks to the base. I wrapped them in wax paper to prevent them from gluing to the stone and epoxy. 

The stone has a beveled corner, so I stuck a triangular file also wrapped in wax paper to minimize the amount of epoxy I would need to shape later. 

 This is how it looked once the forms were removed.

Once it was fully cured (about 1/2 hour) I began to slowly shave away the excess epoxy. I was very careful with my chisel here so as to not trash it.

My patch is still a bit too white but I haven't even tried yet to camo it with some veining, which I will get to once this ORC is over.

I added a piece of cork to the bottom to save my floors but I may remove it because I think it is interfering with the balance of the thing.

The Brasa lamp at 29$ was a pretty good solution to the missing dome for now. I will still be on the lookout for a rounder, slightly smaller one to eventually put on there (hello ebay). I also rewired the whole thing with fresh electrical.

It's a pretty lamp, there are multiple places in my house where it would look good. It does weigh like 80 pounds.

Steet finds...I love them, would you ever grab something off the street?