It was quite some time ago that I purchased my Ott floor lamp....and I've been very happy with its performance for many years. But a couple of weeks ago I noticed that it was starting to get a little wobbly. I ignored it. It got more wobbly. Finally I decided to investigate the source of the wobble and I noticed that there was a big bolt in the bottom of the base. I dug out my wrench (from my simple and sparse tool drawer)....and proceeded to tighten it. I turned and turned, and just when I started to thing that it was getting tighter, it would loosen again. Meh! - it was stripped.
Hmmmmm, now what? Call Dad of course! His first comment was "it must have been loose for a while to strip it...." and, after my guilty confession, his second comment was "Get some steel Epoxy -- it will either fix it permanently or break it permanently..." Having faced the hassle and expense of getting spare parts from the US for it once before (power surge killed the ballast - my fault), I was eager to try anything before shelling out a bunch of money, not to mention doing without my lamp in the meantime.
So the other night, I assembled everything....applied the epoxy, lined it all up and tilted it over onto the couch to support the heavy top -- and then left it all to cure for 24 hours (my Dad's third comment). I was anxious to see if it was going to hold...but I resisted the temptation to give it a little wiggle. The next evening I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it had worked! I'm not sure how long it will hold, but I'm going to baby it along, for as long as I can, and hope that the fix is permanent.
