How to pull the insides out of a light bulb: ways to disassemble while preserving the base or cut it off

An incandescent light bulb is a great material for DIY crafts. It can serve as a decorative element or a convenient vessel for various purposes. There are several ways to dismantle her insides. To understand how to disassemble a light bulb, you need to decide on its purpose in the "second life". Separating the bulb from the base and removing the entrails from the whole lamp are different procedures.

Dismantling while maintaining the base

The operation itself is simple. But since during the work there is always a risk that the glass bulb may burst, it is worth taking care of precautions. To prevent the fragments from flying far, disassembly can be done over a cardboard box or cover the workplace with a cloth. This will help collect the broken glass. It is very important to observe safety measures: use gloves and goggles during handling. It is helpful to wrap the flask in a suitable towel.

To work, you need the following tools:

• pliers, pliers, or wire cutters;
• screwdriver;
• tweezers.

Destruction of the insulator

The first step is to remove the contact at the bottom of the base. For thisgripping the disc with pliers, you need to carefully loosen it and then turn it until the contact wire breaks. A hole will open under the removed metal washer through which the electrical connection thread passed. It will serve as a hook for pliers or wire cutters in the next procedure - breaking the black insulator. The latter must be painted out very carefully, since the chips of glass that fill the base of the base are extremely sharp.

There is one more way to open a light bulb, which involves partial removal of its bottom. To do this, you need to saw off part of the base approximately at the place where the thread begins. This can be done with a hacksaw, but often the base metal is so soft and thin that a regular knife will suffice to cut it. The bottom is then separated with a black glass insulator.

Opening and removal of entrails

After removing the insulator, you will see the sealed leg of the glass bulb with the conductors sticking out of it. You need to gently break it. It is not worth making a lot of effort for this. At the time of the tube's destruction, you can hear a soft pop due to the depressurization of the flask - in old devices, glass cylinders were evacuated so that the filament would not oxidize. Now the flasks are filled with an inert gas, more often with a mixture of argon and nitrogen.

Now you need to use a screwdriver to break the leg of the central holder of the tungsten filament. It will not be so easy to remove it from the cylinder. If you break the glass to the rim of the base, the whole bulb may crack. You need to carefully expand the hole and try to remove the insides by pulling on the tendrils of the conductors or shaking out the lamp. If this cannot be done easily, use tweezers.

Opening by cutting the flask

So, the instruction on how to open a light bulb in order to preserve the base involves removing the insides through the bottom of the contact part. But often, for the further use of the lamp, it is not necessary to preserve its base at all. In this case, the problem of how to pull the insides out of the bulb disappears by itself - the task is to qualitatively cut the flask at the base and separate everything unnecessary from it.

Thermal method

It is based on the fact that with a rapid change in temperature, due to uneven expansion, glass breaks at the point of stress. To control the process, it is necessary to locally heat the flask along the line of the future cut, and then cool it sharply. For this you will need:

• silk thread;
• alcohol;
• container with water.

First of all, you need to wrap the base of the flask with thread. It does not hurt to designate the future line for separating the base, marking it with a glass cutter. A ring of wound thread is moistened with an alcoholic liquid and ignited. During combustion, you need to rotate the light bulb for an even and complete burnout. As soon as the flame goes out, it is necessary to immerse the hot section in a vessel with water. As a result of thermal shock, the bulb will crack exactly along the line of the most intense heating.

After cutting the flask, the edges of the chip should be smoothed out on sandpaper. This procedure is best done by wetting the paper with water so that fine glass dust does not accidentally enter the respiratory tract or eyes.

Mechanical method

It consists in cutting the flow at the base of the balloon with various tools. The easiest way to do this is with a diamond file with edges. You can make a cut with rotation tools - on a sharpening wheel or a dremel with appropriate discs. In this case, it will be useful to wrap the place of the cut with insulating tape in one layer and make a cut directly along the tape. This method does not require water cooling, therefore it is not difficult if you have a tool and suitable abrasives.

There are other methods for disassembling light bulbs, such as cutting with a laser or nichrome thread using electricity. But they can be too demanding on equipment that the DIYer does not always have at hand. It is important to remember that all of the above methods of opening are applicable only to incandescent lamps. In no case should you disassemble fluorescent devices using such methods - they contain highly toxic mercury vapors, therefore, they are disposed of only at specialized enterprises.