So here is my steampunk lamp with the bones. I discovered that I needed to have a disconnected bone from the stem to the first pivot.
I was able to get the bones to be properly placed by selecting each object in object or edit mode (depending on how I was positioning it, some times I needed to link to a face) and then setting the 3D cursor at that point and then Adding a new bone. I would then reposition the 3D cursor again and snap the tail of the bone to the next position.
This seemed to work pretty well, considering that the lamp arm is actually offset from the stem of the lamp from the base.
What do you think?