so here we have a lamp posibily a carbide. i have striped it down as far as i can, when every thing is off the lamp there is a rattling coming from the tank it sounds like a spring and a ball for whant of a better description. on the side if the tank is stamped the following FIREMANN&WOLF.G.m.b.H/WICKAUI/SA
Hi Beanz. It's not just possibly a carbide lantern... it is a carbide lantern as I already have explained in your shed topic. The thing that rattles inside might be a perforated tube that often were used to keep a clear way for the dripping water. If not so, there were other ways to control this, and also often a plate with a weak spring that pushed down on the carbide stones. You just simply has to open it up to see what makes the noice. What does the bottom of the carbide container look like? Is there a large wing nut, or is the bottom flat?
Sometimes there's a nut at the bottom of the carbide compartment that is unscrewed to separate the water tank from it. Sometimes the two parts are screwed together with a large thread in the flange between them. In this case it might also be the part on top with the burner jet that holds the two pieces together (the one with a wing nut shaped base that's already unscrewed). In that case you should be able to pry the two compartments apart already now. The rubber or leather gasket will often make them stick together quite hard on lamps that hasn't been opened for decades.
the tank has a flat bottom, i have the feeling that it will unscrew but i did not want to force anything. Oh! and the there is a price tag on it that reads 9 shillings and 6 pence
lol. so how do carbide lamps work? and from these photos is there anything missing from this lamp? and will it work?
From what we can see on your pictures, nothing essential seems to be missing. But you need to separate the two containers to let us see how it look inside before we can say anything for sure. If it's not rusted through, it should probably work after replacement of the gasket (#6 in the illustration below. There might be one or two more gaskets depending on your construction) There are different systems for carbide lamps, but the most common is actually the one you also got here: "water dripping on calcium carbide". The image below show the general principle of your kind of lamp. I have coloured the part where the water goes blue, and the calcium carbide grey. Pos. 3 is the drip spindle. The part on your last photo above. Pos. 1 is the burner (jet). Yours come out of the centre of the water tank, and I think you also release the two compartments with the centre tube with its wing nut. (On my illustration you have a separate screw for this, and the burner tube is offset.) The function is simple. When water slowly drips on the calcium carbide by turning the drip spindle counter clockwise, acetylene gas will form from the reaction from water and calcium carbide and pass via a filter (9) through the tube and exit through the burner (1) where it is lit and burns with a bright white flame. The reaction is this: CaC2 + H2O → C2H2 + Ca(OH)2, so as you can see, the main residue after all is used up is the slaked lime mixed with some excessive water in a greyish goo that you'd better clean out before it hardens. *Edit: Found another illustration that I scanned. It has the same kind of attachment for the two containers as yours via the centre screw on top of the water tank (Never mind the different type of split burner):
thank you, now i understand i will see if i can unscrew the tank, i think that i will use a couple of strap wrenches so as to not damage the tank.
Once you get the lamp to a workable condition, please be aware that acetylene gas is highly flammable. A trick that most 'gas lit' motorcyclists used was to turn on the water, wait a few moments (depending on how far the gas had to travel from tank to jet), open the glass to the lamp, and blow any residual gas away - THEN apply a lighted match. Close the glass. Failure to blow the residual gas away could lead to some singed eyebrows as the residual gas ignited. Take care!
A friend of mine used to used a carbide miners lamp for caving and it always fascinated me... The main thing I remember was not to be too heavy handed with the water adjustment.
i have been able to seperate the tank and i found a metal disk inside. i polished the jet/nozzle and found a marking that was in the shape of a multi pointed star and the number 14. the down side is that unless i find a new nozzle it wont work as it fell on the floor when i took it apart and the ceramic disk broke. the only way i could fix it is to find some one with a metal lathe who could make a brass cup with a small hole in the centre, approx 1mm.
That is to complicate things for no reason since these burners are readily available. Just search eBay, and especially the French version (write bec carbure). (You can also try something like bray's burner or bray burner at eBay.com) Besides, the holes (two of them, not one), shall be about 0.20 mm each and pointed at a certain angle in relation to eachother, so it's not as easy as just drilling a straight hole in a piece of brass. What you need to do, is to get rid of the remaining brass shell of your jet. It should go away pretty easy if you grab it with a pair of pliers. A good heat and quench before can help to loosen things up. The thread is a very tapered and shallow one specifically made for acetylene burners of this kind. Then just take the new burner and mount it without too much force. Seal the thread with e.g. shell lack. Your lantern has a 14 litres burner, and that sounds about right. That is probably the most common size, but if you can't get hold of that one, a size up or down will do, but the light output vs. calcium carbide consumption will be affected accordingly. I think your lantern should work without problems since it doesn't seem to be rusted at its weakest point: the bottom of the water tank. Good luck.
Beanz, You can find some images of flames and burners here: http://petroman.de/steckbrief/showads.php?catid=38 The burners come in different sizes. All the outer dimensions are more or less the same but the rated gas flow (usually given in litres per hour in Europe) can be used to find the correct burner. I have listed some 21 litre burners http://hytta-antik.de/index.php?p=detail&id=1204 but these may be too big for your lantern, as you will need 14-litre-burners. Btw. Your lantern is a German war time product. As kerosene was rare, later totally unavailable to the public, lanternmakers used their parts and converted it for the use of an other fuel. Erik.
Here you can ask for several information in the English spoken section Don't hesitate 8) http://forum.pelam.de/board21-english-area/board24-collector´s-section/
