We have restored a huge amount of industrial lamps over the last few years and this one has without a doubt the most character of any of them. It literally oozes industrial cool !!. It bears all of the scars of its 80 year life and looks so much better for them all !
 
Founded in London in 1931, MEK ELEK specialised in the manufacture of the Mekelite lathe light, primarily for use within the aircraft industry.

The quality of MEK ELEK lights is outstanding. This is borne out with the fact that in many cases the lights have outlasted the buildings and machinery that they were designed for !
This light would have most likely been in an engineering shop and used to light a piece of equipment like a lathe or a machine press. A real piece of British history !!.

Now a little about the restoration....
When I first saw this light I knew it would be criminal to fully restore it to new. The shade alone is quite literally a work of time worn art. I decided to do a partial restoration with all new electrical components. This entailed taking all of the metal parts with the exception of the shade back to bare metal. These were then all lightly polished to give a satin finish. Each component was then clear powder coated to lock the finish in.

We see many of these lamps spoiled by the base. We weren’t going to let that happen with this restoration so no old bits of scaffold board here. We made the base out of 40mm thick solid English pippy oak. The oak has fantastic grain and splits. This was fine sanded and sealed with Danish oil. For the final finish we applied three coats of Fiddes high quality English oak wax. The grain looks stunning and it complements the green of the lamp perfectly.

For the electrification we used a new antique styled B22 brass light fitting. We re-wired the lamp with period correct braided cable. The lamp has an on and off switch on the cable. The lamp comes with a 1.5 mtr cable and a 3 pin UK plug. It is earthed and has been PAT tested for electrical safety. The lamp is supplied with an energy efficient vintage style Edison LED filament bulb.

If purchasing the lamp outside of the UK the bulb will be removed but a suitable plug adaptor will be included.
 
Whats especially cool about this lamp is that it’s multifunctional. It rotates from the base 180 deg’s. The lamp also concertinas from 50cm to over 100cm in height. You can also angle the shade of the lamp left and right and up and down. This is the ultimate task lamp !! Perfect on a desk or table. It took over two weeks to restore and I know that whoever buys this is going to love it..
 
Approximate dimensions are as follows
 
Base - 230mm diameter
Height 50cm to over 100cm
Weight 5kg approx.