This is a beautiful and cute lantern. The raised board in the center is something you often see on old lanterns. What purpose does it serve? Is it to guide the alcohol flame into the mantle? ?
Hello ! yes i believe its' there to somewhat direct the flame towards the vaporizer, and at the same time it holds the alcohol cup in place.
I like these lanterns very much, and that’s a fine example. Did you make that blue colour on the control wheel? Tony
No these wheels are blue, in fact, both the wheel itself, and the insert are blue originally, the main wheel is a very dark violet tone, and the insert is light blue, but the wheel becomes brown when it ages, and the blue insert turns green. What i do is that i clean the insert and wet sand it down to the blue color, and the wheel itself i clean and scrape of the brownish hue with a model knife and wet sand where possible.
It is so good to know how these lamps looked when new. Thanks a lot @Tive Definitely light and dark blue looks way better than shitty brown and green and makes a difference. Point for Petromax designers. all the best, Piotrek
A fine example. Seems that both the early and later bakelite knobs(not the fibre ones) do darken with age. In most cases, they came in blue originally. The newer reproduction knobs from China don't appear like they would darken, even with age.
Yes all the blue wheels do darken with age, normally to a green brownish color on the two piece insert, and totally brown on the one piece blue one. both can be refurbished, but they will again darken eventually.
Here you can see the forerunner of the Tive handwheel. The illustration dates back to 1937. Kind regards Jörg
This is now an advertising leaflet from 1939. The color is not quite right, but I think that has to do with the age of the sheet. The lettering on the handwheel certainly fits.
The inserts of the 2-piece early bakelite wheels would usually turn brownish-green after such a long time. They don't actually require that long a time. You should see some changes even after several weeks after polishing it.
oh yes i know, even the 1950's-60's blue one piece turns totally brown in a few years this one was blue 7 years ago.
I have never seen a pre-war Petromax with a blue wheel in Germany. Perhaps an export version for Sweden ? On my lamps they look like this.The completely reddish brown version can only be found on some 2827s.
All my Pre-war Petromaxes with this style are blue underneath the green surface, easy to check with a knife or similar on the backside, some are more blue than others, and the all were dark green when i found them, and none of the lanterns were found in Sweden. sometimes you will be able to sand them down into the blue finish, sometimes not ( if you want the lettering to show) it depends on how deep the color change has gone.
But if you look at it closely, there are chips in the paint on your wheels, and you can see the blue. Now I am tempted, should I sand down my only prewar-lamp-knob... That blue is mesmerizing. Greetings from Nuremberg!
The advertising brochure in post 17 is well preserved and for me an indication that the wheels in 1939 looked exactly like most of the ones in my collection. I was filing on the back of one wheel and came to the conclusion that the color of the material is blue but that they had a green lacquer coating. The predecessors and successors of the two-part wheels were the Pertinax wheels.I don't know the wheel from post 14,never seen it.
