Hey,
I am rewiring an old chandelier from the 1920's.
It has 8 lights on it. From the size of the wire holes in the chandelier, I think it was originally wired in series. That is, there was a single loop that went around to each fixture: in to + side of socket, out from - side; on to the next socket attaching to the + side, out the - side and on to the next one. This would result with 2 wires being installed through each hole/conduit in the chandelier

To effectively wire this in parallel, I would have to install 4 wires: hot in and out, and neutral in and out, and, there is not the capacity for this amount of wiring in the tubes running to the (new) sockets.

I understand the problems with series bulb wiring in that if one bulb goes out, the whole series goes out. Nevertheless, I am considering wiring it in series again. My understanding is that the voltage for each bulb would be 120/8 or about 15 volts.

Since most chandeliers are on a reostat anyway, don't the bulbs work fine with the lower voltages?

Does anyone have any other idea on how to wire this thing? I could do a junction box and run individual double wire sets out from there but that would be so many connections and so much wire. I am hoping for an elegant solution that will result in a loop or some other way of wiring that other may come up with.

Happy New Year.
G'ville

Huh?

Lamp cord down each of the tubes. The cord will have a ribbed side and a non ribbed side.
Ribbed goes to neutral and to the screw side of the base of the lamp.

Black goes to the center of the lamp socket and the non ribbed side.

Hopefully these can reach to the top of the chandelier or can be junctioned before it reaches the top.

There, pigtail to two black and white 14 AWG stranded wires so that you can easily make the connection to the 14 AWG wires in the ceiling.

To save on wires, you can get by with 9 wires.

We can also go to hi-tech wires, like teflon insulated, to reduce the size even more.

Post a picture especially of useful area and the inner diameter of the tubes.

What is the base of the lamp and the wattage of the lamps you intend to use. I'd say that 15 W is probably the max which would give about 120 W of light.

We can easily go to 16 AWG or 18 AWG teflon wire. The diameter with insulation will be about 2 mm (easier to visualize, hopefully). I'd wire with white and black. The T-stripper strips Teflon without any problems. About $8.00. I can provide a supplier name.

http://www.belden.com/pdfs/MasterCatalogPDF/PDFS_links%20to%20docs/03_Hook-Up%20&%20LeadWire/3.9_3.11.pdf

Teflon has a very high dielectric strength (1000 v/mil) and is high temperature. 200 deg. C is easily obtainable.

Lamps operating in series at 15V (like you suggested) will be pretty dim.

Since you're a new user of AskMeHelpDesk, you can post pictures directly using the "Go Advanced" tab.

I vote for a big knot of 9 of each color of wire in the center. Strip a generous length and carefully twist them together and put a proper sized wire nut on them. Even if you use 60 watt bulbs, 8 of them is series isn't going to make much light, and it will be very yellow.

He was talking about using low voltage bulbs. Are you using this for usable light, or just for decoration?

I'm with Labman though.