Bringing Tungsten Back

How we restored 10 big classic tungsten lights

Mole-Richardson, an iconic manufacturer of classic Tungsten lights, closed its doors and ceased business operations in December, 2025. It had been in business since 1927, surviving almost 100 years.

Mole lights were synonymous with Hollywood and were used in an unenumerable amount of classic movies. Much like the film slate and boom mic, when you thought of a 'movie light', one of these probably came to mind. They were legendary.

Within the last 10+ years, the film industry started to shift away from filming with incandescent tungsten lighting towards LED technology. The last couple of decades before this also saw the use of cinema-grade fluorescent lighting (Kino Flo) and daylight-balanced HMI (Hydrargyrum Medium-arc Iodide) lights, but tungsten use was still widespread.

LED's run on less power for more output. They are more efficient, run much cooler in temperature, and can be used on more household circuits. They have come a long way in terms of color rendition. At release they were almost unusable because of the 'green spikes' (green parts of the color spectrum that it rendered better than other colors) and otherwise low CRI. We had to gel them magenta to compensate, but all this did was mute the colors out.

Now, the technology is much better. They are far more full-spectrum. They can do all kinds of effects, and operate wirelessly through app connection or wireless DMX. They are pretty amazing.

BUT. Is newer always better? Not quite. LED's solve a lot of problems on set. But there's something special about Tungsten lighting that no LED can replicate.

Tungsten is one of the purest forms of light. It has an extremely even color spectrum, reproducing colors even better than daylight itself (because the atmosphere blocks some of the spectrum).

It's a blackbody radiation source and burns at 3200 Kelvin, which is why we set our white balance on our cameras to this value when we want the light to appear a neutral white.

It renders skin tones beautifully, and is extremely faithful when lighting colors. It has a natural warmth that makes everything look great.

It's a bit like vinyl records. It's analogue. No firmware or computer chips. They're reliable as hell and can be fixed easily.

So as tungsten light has seen a decline in use, we saw an opportunity.

We wanted to save the legacy of these legendary lights. Not only to preserve them, but to bring them back to their former glory and regularly use them.

When a major studio rental company put them up for auction, we set our sights on them, and won.

The Restoration

We hand-picked lights that were already in good shape to begin with, but they were still in need of some love. Decades of dust, rusted hardware, peeling paint, broken ceramics, loose screws, gunk, old rental house markings, and paint stains needed to be addressed.

Everything was wiped down with rubbing alcohol and rag cloths from the hardware store. Aluminum was brushed with 0000 steel wool. Tougher areas were sanded with 600 and 400 grit sanding pads, and the hardest gunk was removed with a steel brush. Rental house stickers were removed with Goo Gone and a paint scraper.

A lot of the hardware and screws were rusted and needed to be replaced. I spent a lot of time going back and forth to the hardware store to get the right size screws, nuts, and washers.

The maroon paint needed some touch-ups, so I searched far and wide to get the authentic enamel paint. Most expendables stores were sold out of it. I had it shipped from New York and had to pay a hazardous shipping fee. I used up nearly all of it touching up the Maxi-Brutes. The bottoms were rusted, so I had to remove the rust, spray it with a black anti-rusting paint, and then paint it with the Mole enamel paint.

Some of the 1k ceramic sockets for the Maxi's were broken and I needed to replace them. For the first one I replaced, I ended up opening the whole unit up like a can of worms. Big mistake. I threaded the old cable back the whole way into the housing and replaced it from there. I cut the old fiberglass insulation off and installed a new one. Then I realized I could have just spliced the cable way closer to the socket. So the rest were way easier! I spent way too much time on the first one.

Now onto the Fresnels. The rental house stencils were wiped off with mineral spirits and a rag. It came right off. I did the same to prepare the barn doors. I started with one of the 10k barndoors and found something interesting. An inscription.

"ILM NEW 1 - 6 - 90"

I thought, could it be? The ILM? I knew that acronym. Industrial Light and Magic. George Lucas' special effects company that worked on countless classic movies.

Did they buy this light new on January 6th, 1990? Maybe, but I wasn't convinced. Until I removed the rental house stencil from the barn doors with mineral spirits. It revealed a logo underneath on the both of them.

Yup. That's Industrial Light and Magic's logo. Pretty cool! These lights aren't just great tools. They are a part of movie history. It was a fun surprise!

I repainted the barn doors and fresnel holder with black high-heat paint. The grids were removed and repainted with high heat aluminum colored paint. A lot of the screws for this were so rusted that I couldn't remove them, so I had to drill new holes straight through the old screws.

I had to make stencils of various sizes for the different lights, so we bought a laser engraver and cut some stencils out of black mylar acrylic. White high heat spray paint was used for the logos.

The Maxi Brutes had globes included, but I had to buy new ones for the 5k's and 10k's. Oh boy. They were more expensive than the units! They only last about 300 hours. But all in, still cheaper than LED's, and these have way more output.

Tungsten Power

These units do not run off household circuits. The 5k's have a 60amp bates tail. The Maxi Brutes and 10k's have a 100 amp tail. We don't have this kind of power at the shop, so I had to test them using my multimiter for continuity. Luckily, they all passed.

You do need proper electrical distro to run these lights. They are big units after all. Most stages in LA include power distro needed, but you can also rent a tow generator and the required distro. We like to rent our distro through our buddies at Arclite Rentals.

A Legacy Reborn

It took about 3-4 months to overhaul these lights, but I think they turned out pretty well. They don't look brand new, but that was never the intention. I only wanted to return them to their former glory as working rental lights. They have history in their scars and hidden marks. They deserve to be celebrated.

But these aren't just museum pieces. They're living history! And they'll be lighting sets for decades to come.

Feel free to contact us for a rental so you can experience them for yourself!