Rewiring a lamp

Diagnose first, then buy the smallest part that fixes it. A flickering or dead lamp with a good cord needs a socket, not a kit. A lamp whose cord is cracked or whose plug gets warm needs the whole kit. Either way it is a few dollars and under an hour, and a lamp you chose is worth that.

The only lamps genuinely not worth rewiring are ones where the body itself has failed - a cracked ceramic base, a bent stem that will not hold a shade - or where the cord insulation is crumbling along its whole length and the lamp is old enough that you do not know what else is perished.

Four symptoms cover nearly every dead lamp, and each points at one part. Test the bulb in another lamp first - it is free and it is the answer more often than anyone expects.

The shape of a rewire, so you know what you are agreeing to. This is an outline rather than a step-by-step - the kit you buy will carry its own instructions, and those take precedence.

1. Unplug the lamp. Then take the shade, finial and harp off and set them aside.
2. Open the socket shell. Most press apart at a marked point near the base; the outer shell lifts off an inner cap.
3. Note which wire went where before disconnecting anything. The neutral conductor is the ribbed or marked one on lamp flex and goes to the silver screw; the smooth one goes to brass.
4. Pull the old cord through the lamp pipe, using the old cord to draw the new one through if the route is awkward.
5. Fit the new socket cap, tie an underwriter knot in the cord inside the cap - that knot is what stops a tug on the cord reaching the terminals - and connect ribbed to silver, smooth to brass.
6. Reassemble, refit the harp and shade, and test before putting it back where it lives.

The complete job in one box: the 3-way rewire kit with matching cord and harp. Socket, cord and harp arriving in matched antique brass, which is the part people get wrong when they buy the three separately and end up with a brass socket on a nickel harp. The 3-way socket keeps a lamp low-medium-high.
Who should skip it: anyone whose cord is fine - you are paying for parts you do not need - and anyone who wants a stated UL listing, which this one does not carry.

The cheapest complete kit: the Creative Hobbies make-or-repair kit. From a brand that does nothing but lamp parts, with a 3-way socket and matching cord, for less than the kit above. The one to buy if you are rewiring more than one lamp.
Who should skip it: anyone who also needs a harp - there is none in this kit - and anyone matching anything other than an antique finish on this listing.

Socket only, done properly: the DiCUNO UL Listed 3-way socket. UL Listed and 3-way. If the diagnosis table pointed at the socket and the cord is sound, this is the entire repair and the cheapest route to it.
Who should skip it: anyone whose cord is suspect - replacing a socket onto a tired cord means doing the job twice - and anyone with nickel or black hardware, since this is gold.

A plain on/off socket: the DiCUNO UL Listed on/off socket, black. UL Listed, black, and the right choice for a lamp that never had three levels - or one destined for a smart plug or a dimmer, where a 3-way switch just adds a state to get confused about.
Who should skip it: anyone replacing a 3-way socket, because the lamp will lose its brightness steps and the 3-way bulb in it will stop stepping.

If the shade never sat right either, now is the moment - lamp shade, harp and fitter sizes has the measurements, and a rewire kit with a harp in it has already made the decision for you.

If you fitted a 3-way socket, it does nothing without a 3-way bulb - the best 3-way LED bulbs covers which ones actually step properly.

If this went well and there is a hardwired fixture you cannot use, the same skills apply - converting a hardwired fixture to plug-in is the next job up.