Hi-
I found this forum in my attempts to refurbish my vintage lamp. I hope someone will be able to help me out. I have an old ('50's?)Stanley Magnifier lamp that uses a F4T5. It's working fine, however the cord is very brittle and cracking. It has a ballast in-line with the power cord. I'm basically looking to rewire it with a new cord and ballast. Apparently they don't make these in line ballasts anymore, or I just don't know where to look. I've found ballasts for the F4T5 but they aren't contained and would have to make a box from a radio shack project box or something. Any suggestions would be most welcome. Thanks-

post some pics.i have carefully opened up those before and rewired.
sounds like a rare unit.
is it stanley usa or japan?

Hope these help. Made in U.S.A.

One more.

need some hi res closeups of the ballast.
never seen a us stanley unit like that.
kinda looks like the one on my sunnen cylinder honing machine.

My photo skills are not great. Lots of flash bounce. This is what the ballast says:
CAT NO. 234-001-085 BALLAST
4 watt 118 volt    .135 AMP. 60 CYC.
Jefferson Electric
     Company
Bellwood, Ill. U.S.A.
      218213

Bottom of ballast-

carefully pry those 4 tabs up and take off the cover.rewire it.
it may be tar potted but a heatgun will soften it enough to get the wires up to work on them.

Yep- tar potted. Are there other alternatives? This seems out of my realm.

If you do not feel that you can rewire it, please cut the wires carefully a little way out from the ballast and set it aside for a fellow collector.  You may could actually "make" a ballast for this.

Well I opened it up and got to the wires but decided that it was best to just put it back together and continue to use the light as is. Thanks for everyone's help, and if any other ideas/suggestions come along that would be great.

might be the best move.
get practiced on other stuff and come back to it.its a rather unique item.
too bad you are not in dayton oh area.its about a 10 minute job for me.but then i restuff capacitor blocks from antique philco radio's so relatively speaking its easy.