A little lineman lights a lamp

First-class lineman Ricky Sellers of Brunswick EMC spent four months making a table lamp with a scale-model lineman working it. The lamp is connected to an antique meter measuring its power draw.

He was not familiar with either making models or using the required materials: recycled wood, copper, plastic, clay, paint, brass, aluminum, steel, small nails, rubber, cork, cloth, string, leather and glass.

“I had no clue what I was getting myself into,” Sellers said. “The lineman itself took two months to make and had to be done under a magnified work light. I once dropped the hot line clamp on my workshop floor, and it took two hours to find because of the tiny size of it.”

The little lineman wears hooks for climbing the little pole and wields a little hot stick for working on live lines. “My wife and kids used to pick at me about my little lineman,” Sellers said. “They nicknamed him Dolly. A couple of times they went so far as to dress him up in different Barbie doll dresses. Not funny to an old lineman like myself.”

A 29-year member of the Brunswick EMC staff, Sellers is the lead quality control technician for the cooperative’s Whiteville office. He said he is unlikely to make another one of these lamps. “Because of time it takes to fabricate every piece, it would be hard to find the time. If I were to, it just wouldn’t be one of a kind.”