Ah’ the long strip light shame.
This past Spring I worked on one that had
porcelain reflectors that in addition to having to re-wire and work on the metal parts to, I also had to re-porcelain the reflectors which was a really messy process. At least your Major’s are Alzark process in spun aluminum
reflector.
Done a few of these similar amongst other types a few years ago and they are still useful for color mixing say in a Junior High School or Grade School setting. Strip lights to
wash with, side light in modern fixtures to badly light but let the kids get their lime light. Heck, six banks of 6' of them helped in any number of was especialy in doing blue to establish night both in small and large stages
thru just plain
wash of light. Color washing and mixing ability of a strip light beyond blue has an amazing
effect on the
broad lighting - you can make magic with what they can do when supplemented by other lighting. They are useful.
Dependant on what lamp this
fixture was designed for - A21 or A19, you might need overall to do like at $6.00 each in going A-19
halogen lamp if the smaller lamp don’t fit in buying E-26 based
socket extenders so as to lengthen the lamp
socket in
fitting the now shorter
Halogen lamp. Osram/Sylvania #18970 amongst other brands possibly selling them solves this
intensity and
color temperature problem in using strip lights - though still large in wattage. A good dimmable
LED - A-19 lamp replacement at like $50.00 each would also solve that problem. Could be cost prohivitive and
LED’s in full color spectrum with the roundells could make for further problems though. As a
LED boarder light though... It’s a concept.
A 16' bar of light is mostly obsolete these days, and they would need re-wiring no matter what you end up doing with them. There has been past articles on the forum about how to do so, and saving the lamp sockets that are probably toast, and at least hard to remove the wiring on them is hard, is still possible. Cutting them in half to make them more user friendly is also possible if you have a few of them and some of them become spare parts in making whole fixtrures.
Overall, I would look into if you for your shop want to use them, they are really viable given the Osram lamps above, this assuming they don’t need the
socket extenders. If they do need
socket extenders... probably not worth working on. As for donating for tax write off... should only be done if safe to use and no doubt in
current condition they should be retired.
Sorry in as I do collect antique lighting fixtures for a museum, even specilize in them, strip lights as said are very obsolete and given their size limited in able to sell off. Even I don’t collect them for my own museum. Roundells are valuable at least as with probably the
gel frames that mount them. After that, a lot of work that might be a lost cause in making something viable for a
fixture once re-wired and reserviced, but really expensive in doing so.
Of all antique lights, sorry to say but old strip lights, while if you were local I would at least hang them, give them to Less if more local than me, they have no value and cost prohibitive to fix in making safe or viable. Metal scrap on them will get you something at least. Unless you can do the
asbestos abatement and full re-wire, giving them away is no favor.
