4X8w converted bulkhead - Lit side view.

For years I've been eyeing up these massive double sided fire exit lights, wondering if I could convert them to a regular fluorescent light, and thanks to a fellow collector I now have my answer to that question.

Acquired as a 1w LED bulkhead, and seeing the criminal amount of wasted space inside (basically, all of it) I immediately stripped out the LED stuff and threw it in a bin at very high velocity. The emblems were removed, and all sticky stuff cleaned off with Brasso. This now left the question of, how the hell do I proceed? After a lot of debate, I concluded that I should replicate the starter socket position (hidden beneath the label) at all four corners, and create two brackets to stack the tubes. 4 hours of work left me with two extremely well fabricated brackets (surprisingly, I ain't the best at metalwork) and once pop riveted into place on the gear tray, I began the tedious wiring job.

In the end it took about 4 hours to wire the bulkhead up to my usual OCD standard, and once the tubes were fitted, my first thought is it looks a lot like a fly killer. Powering it, all 4 tubes sprang into life simultaneously, another successful conversion job completed. I absolutely love how the cover still allows the tubes to be visible, but at the same time softens the light perfectly without any loss of light output. In usual fashion, any 8w bulkhead I have is to be installed in my lanterns shed, and since this does actually look a bit like a lantern from an end perspective, should fit in perfectly in the shed.