MetaChat HandyPerson Problem Whuffles to anyone who can help me rewire my lamp.→[More:]So I have this great vintage lamp, and the 1950s era wiring finally short-circuited and crapped out - probably a good thing as it forces me to fix it rather push my luck.

So no problem, I know how to rewire a lamp. Except here's the issue. The lamp is long and made of metal. It's shaped like a chicken, and it's a hollow-molded shape. The wire enters the bottom of the lamp through a fairly normal, round base, passes through the chicken shape, and then has to make into a very narrow channel to get up to the socket.

Problem is, new-fashioned lamp cord is much thicker than old-fashioned lamp cord. I can't feed it through the lamp because it gets jammed.

I tried separating the two sides in order to pull one end through at a time. I can get one end through, but then there's no hope in hell of getting the other end into the narrow channel that you can't even see, because once the first cord is in there it's a really tight fit and the second half of the cord just mungles up at the bottom of the tube.

I've tried:

-using a chopstick to pass through the channel, attaching some dental floss to the wire end and to the chopstick, and drawing the chopstick back through so the wire will follow as if on a messenger cable. It works well enough to get one piece through, but the floss breaks when I try to get the second piece through. I haven't tried it with anything stouter yet, though I did think of fishing line.

-pushing it through using the chopstick. Also not productive.

I really wish I could back it down the channel from the socket end to the base, avoiding the intensely annoying part of fishing the wire around inside the hollow molded chicken bit where you can't see trying to find the channel, but for that I'd have to use a lamp cord without a plug on it and wire on a plug. I don't know how to do that and it seems advanced. Also I'd have to go get a new cord and a plug.

I guess Option Z is to say 'fuck it' and go pay the guy down at the Sew N Vac to do it, but you know, I like the satisfaction of doing these things myself. That's a last resort.

Any genius ideas for chasing a too-thick cable through a too-thin, fiddly tube?