Author Topic: How to bring a century-old bulb back to life... (Read 9620 times)

Chris W. Millinship · « **on:** January 21, 2002, 09:38:00 am »

Once upon a time, I bought a big red bulb that got damaged in the post. Today, it lights as good as the day it were made- find out how, here...
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.millinship/bulbrepair/

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Tluce · « **Reply #1 on:** January 21, 2002, 03:56:00 pm »

Chris, thanks for sharing that with us. James is quite the craftsman. I imagine an antique lamp is like any other antique. A repaired antique is worth more than a broken antique but not as much as an untouched antique. But if you took that lamp to someone who couldn't tell it was repaired then it is as good as new. Just my unscrupulous opinion. Nice job!
How do you make a carbon paste? Thanks, Tim

Chris W. Millinship · « **Reply #2 on:** January 22, 2002, 07:59:00 pm »

Glad you liked it. I agree, James certainly does have great glassworking/"bulbworking" skills! It does look like a simple enough procedure but is extremely tricky. There are probably a few steps I left out of my account too, but the important bits are there.

I imagine an antique lamp is like any other antique. A repaired antique is worth more than a broken antique but not as much as an untouched antique.

I have to agree with this. All its features are there still to be studied and examined- base, stem, bulb shape itsself, etc. The only thing that isn`t original is the tip- and myself and James took photos of the original tip so in effect, it is still preserved. The minor repair inside does not really affect the look of the lamp, and the fact that it can be lit allows its "electrical/optical characteristics" to be examined too. Well, it lets me glow it once in a while....

How do you make a carbon paste?

I`m not quite sure of this- I believe it`s just ground up carbon that gets mixed with some sort of solvent, but there may be a binding/hardening agent of sorts added to make it set solid- not sure. I know someone who would know. Mr Hooker- are you around?

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Bob Masters · « **Reply #3 on:** January 28, 2002, 11:44:00 am »

Hey Chris,

That's a fantastic step-by-step
account of that procedure !!!!!
You did a great job !

Scott · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2002, 10:21:00 am »

That is just too cool-I see nothing wrong with bringing it back to life. I havea couple I'd like to reanimate.. Scott

enb · « **Reply #5 on:** February 27, 2002, 11:53:00 pm »

Pretty cool story about the red bulb repair. Excellent photos too. Thanks!

Rich M · « **Reply #6 on:** April 03, 2002, 11:55:00 pm »

Great Job !

Have you ever repair a tungsten bulb in the same manner ?

Chris W. Millinship · « **Reply #7 on:** May 19, 2002, 02:54:00 pm »

Thanks everyohne, glad you liked it.

Rich- we havn`t tried a tungsten bulb yet but truth be told, it would be next to impossible to repair one. The beauty of carbon is that if it breaks at an anchor point, the same paste used to stick it there in the first place can be used to re-stick it. But Tungsten is usually crimped to the lead-ins and passes through open loops at the anchor points. Because it is such a hard metal with such a high melting point, it is not really possible to re-join it at a break. Aditionally, many tungsten bulbs have a fairly low value- both historically and financially- so to attempt a repair would not normally be viable. I once had two tipless 1924-ish GE Mazda tungsten bulbs arrive through the post damaged, the filaments were in multiple pieces. The only way to repair them would be to cut away the top of the bulb, insert a whole new filament and re-attach the top. The tipless construction made re-exhausting difficult too. The whole process would have taken so long and been so difficult that there was no point even trying.

We only attempted this repair on my red bulb because there was a method that, in theory, would work at a low risk of irreversible damage- and also it was a fairly valuable bulb.

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