I was delighted to find a new English term on this forum. Since i was a kid playing the game Worms Armageddon the weapon for digging and/or taunting your opponent had the name "blowtorch". Now I see it can also be called a blowlamp! This is the literal translation of my mother tounge's "blåslampa". The distinction between torch and lamp makes all the difference. For some reason this really tickles me! Anyway, a friend gave me a blowlamp that looked terrible. Not one to back down I gave it a go! Heating/cooling and a liberal application of thin oil made it possible to wiggle everything loose. Every joint was seized and only started moving a tiny bit at a time once unreasonable force was applied. It did finally work though! Polish did almost nothing and a wire wheel was deemed the only option to move forward. The tarnish came off in clumps or small particles, seemingly without any pattern to how well it was stuck down. :s Some areas proved super difficult but once bare metal was reached there was no real sign of why it had been so difficult... Smooth and (relatively) shiny underneath. The barrel put up a bigger fight! After difficulties even with a coarser wire-wheel I got out the sand paper and went to town. Not ideal, but what's a guy to do eh? The residue was thick and caked into the pitted surface! A stripy pattern emerged and upon some consideration I kinda liked it. I guess they're remnants from manufacturing, a defect of multiple die-punches maybe? Wanting to keep this partially dirty appearance I progressed with finer and finer grits of sand paper. To my dismay my current stash of paper only went to 1000, but after polishing it looked super shiny so I called it good. The whole thing could use another once-over with polish to even everything out but that can wait. The evaporation pipe was fully clogged and just about would let a drop of cerosene through when left pressurised overnight. Obviously a light cleaning of the orifice would not be enough. I do actually have an original tool for this size of plug but it won't fit through the upper, square, part of tubing. :/ A new tool has been fabri-cobbled, but that'll be another post.
@Vigfus Nicely done on the restoration, though I winced at the mention of taking a wire brush to brass! Nevertheless, you seem to have got a very good result. Yes, ‘blowlamp’ has been the term in the UK since their invention. Here’s an advertisement from a 1909 magazine. More recently (1920) there’s this example, made by Max Sievert and sold in the UK by their importers William A. Meyer of London. Sievert made this comment, referring to their “Genuine Swedish soldering lamp”. The purchaser soldered this embossed warning to end users in their business, again referring to a ‘lamp’. John
Nice to see Torch and lamp are sometimes interchageable but the original torch (a stick with burning material on the end) would never be a lamp. But a bicycle lamp can be a torch, a battery hand torch can be a lamp but not a lantern. But a paraffin lantern or lamp cannot be a torch. Then we get to lantern v lamp... (generally accepted that a lamp is directional)
Thank you! Haha, belive me, it wasn't my first choice. Tiny stainless bristles seeems to be fit for purpose though! What a lovely, overly dramatic, sign. They even hacked off top and bottom to make it fit! I wonder why it's only for indoor use though. Sure, winds would make it less useful but on a calm day... Also, does the internal logic forbid the foreman to ever use it? My assumption being that there's only one foreman and he is in fact the top officer. It was! Thanks! Thanks! Ah, yes. Language drapes the world in so much meaning and silver linings when used thoughtfully. <3 What's this one, then? A directional lantern.
@Vigfus @Fireexit1 Lamp or lantern? Directional light as the defining characteristic conflicts with this 1910 French catalogue of acetylene lamps and lanterns. Lamp Another lamp A lantern A line-up of some of my carbide ‘lights’, all with reflectors to direct a beam of light forwards. L-R: lamp, lantern, lantern, lamp The defining characteristic there is the boxy shape of a lantern - maybe! To confuse matters … this is a ship’s binnacle ‘lamp’.
There had been numerous definitions on the lamp or lantern...dictionaries, wikipedia and others on the web. Also, there had been a thread on it here: Lamp or Lantern
Maybe the purpose of the side windows is relevant? Seem fairly consistent that large wide spread illumination to the sides makes it a lantern and smaller makes it a lamp. Haha, that thread didn't really shine much light on the subject either. Seems to up to any one to call it whatever they please.
Luckily the absence of proper tooling didn't stop me! Being a packrat I had some hardened stell rod lying around. It's an old punch from a tool/die setup I think. Knowing how darn hard brass can stick there really was no point in trying to make something out of mild steel and trying to twist it. Eyeballing and grinding with a small cut-off wheek made good headway into the cut but damn that steel is hard! I had a glass of water handy to dunk it in to try to keeo the hardening - at least up the shaft. It came up to a dull straw colour in some spots and only went blue in the outer tips so that should be fine. (Yay metallurgy!) Once a cut was made curiosity got the better of me. I fouled up the orifice by trying to loosen it before getting deep enough of a cut. :/ Ah well, better just keep going so it doesn't get ruined any more by some impatient amateur. Once full depth of cut was reached i tried it out. With the head still being too wide for the "square of tubes" up top, the tool needs to be inserted backwards at an angle and then positioned correctly over the flats of the orifice. Without a handle you then need to grip it with pliers to turn it. No go, the steel is way to hard and polished to get a hold of. Sooooo i ground some opposing flats on the other end. Pop! It came loose without much more difficulty once fabrication was done. Maybe that's a lesson in patience? Using the long plastic straw on WD-40 whatever gunk was in the tube was able to be dislodged and flushed clean from both ends. The gunk was fully black and really thick. I don't know what it could have been other than maybe soot mixed with whatever fluids came down the tube and evaporated over years of "storage". Putting it together was very satisfying, firing it up even more so! The almost invisible flame with ocational green streaks warmed the air, but mostly my soul. The noise was also great, like the screaming from a portable mini stove like a Primus 96. One with just an orifice pointing at a plate to keep it contained... It works like a treat and starts up without a fuss. I'll be sure to fenagele it's usage into my standard workflow some how. Why use propane when an old blowlamp would do the job, eh? The chance to give it a bit of a clean and care afterwards is enough encouragement to justify whatever time is lost.
Looks like you are pretty adept in getting these old classic, fire-related devices up running. Congratulations there. I got a feeling you are one those with a natural talent (provided with the assumption that you don't have much prior experiences) for these kind of restoration work. Or at least any any similar mechanical works. You do appear to have a pretty sound knowledge in combustion principles. It does appear that you've got all the terms and part names correct. Ha! , I have some doubts you are a novice. It sure doesn't look like it. I bet the restoration was really 'just a piece of cake' to you. Nice job done.
@MYN Sir, you flatter me! I know next to nothing about these lamps in particular but I will confess to being a tinkerer since childhood. A bit of pyromaniac as well I guess. There's a theme of being nostalgic for time periods I've never experienced, which I guess guides what projects get completed. Thank you for the kind words! Now... On to getting hold of some time period appropriate seals to replace the modern silicone gasket I had to put in there!
Most of us will resort to using Viton rubber seals as it lasts (nearly) forever but looks like rubber. You can buy small sheets of it on ebay and similar and cut your own
@Vigfus Being a pyromaniac certainly helps on these stuffs. We usually avoid silicone seals on anything that might get in contact with liquid fuels. Normal silicone rubbers aren't resistant to these fuels. They'd eventually swell and disintegrate in it. On the other hand, fluorosilicone elastomers are pretty resistant, about on par with Viton. It has the advantage of remaining flexible/resilient at low temperature environments, say in winter.
