Does every light within a fixture need to be grounded or just the fixture itself?

Question

I'm building a chandelier that is around 10 feet tall that will look similar to the picture below. The chandelier is made entirely out of malleable galvanized iron pipe.

Each light socket on this chandelier is an Edison style socket. And that socket has an small opening for a grounded connection.

Questions

• Does each of the 6 light sockets need individually grounded? Meaning each light socket would have a ground wire connected to it and run back to the fixture's Junction box in the ceiling.
• Or does just the fixture itself need grounded? Meaning one ground wire would be clipped, somewhere, onto the fixture's iron pipe and run back to the Junction Box? If the fixture itself just needs grounded, what is the proper way to tie the ground into the fixture itself?

Answer 1

You will really need to answer this question yourself as only you will be able to determine if the whole iron pipe structure will maintain its electrical conductivity from end to end now or over it's full service life. If there is any doubt then it behooves you to string safety GND wires throughout the fixture and connect then all back to a reliable earth (safety) GND back at the junction box.

The goal needs to be protect anyone touching any metal part of the fixture (which seems highly likely due to sheer size alone) from getting a shock in the case that either a neutral wire or a live mains wire happens to short out to the pipe structure.

They always say "Safety First" if that helps in any meaningful way.