Glass Pin Insulator 240V Pendant and Wall lamps

We buy insulators found in Australia, North America, and Russia. They range in size from 30mm telephone system insulators up to the large high tension types of up to 300mm. They are cleaned in a caustic bath and sorted into matching color and size. Some have chips and scratches and overall quality does vary. We reject any that are too damaged but their appeal is in the history they represent. A hole is drilled in the top and an allthread cut to length is fitted to a lampholder so that a cordgrip mechanism can be fitted! Ensuring that the wiring cannot be pulled out under load.

The pin insulator is originally designed to secure the conductor to itself. The most common way to do this is to use a wire to tie the conductor to the insulator. Another method is to design the insulator with self-typing features such as complex slots and grooves formed into the insulator. Finally, for heavy conductors, gravity can be used to hold the conductor in place.

Pin insulators are almost always deployed in the open air, so isolation when wet is a major consideration. To combat this problem, pin insulators feature extra skirts or wide shells to increase the surface distance between the conductor and the pin. The “pin” is typically a wooden or metal dowel of about 3 cm diameter with screw threads. The pin insulator has threads so that it can be screwed onto the pin. A typical pin insulator is more than 10 cm in diameter and weighs one kg or more. Size depends on the voltage to be isolated and the weight of span of wire to be supported.

These electric supply pin insulators have been manufactured all over the world since the 1800′s as electricity distribution grew to supply the growing demand to power everything from the electrification of suburbs to the power for transport and industry. Bare wires transport power from generators through a distribution grid over high tension, high voltage lines and power poles everywhere. Molded glass became the standard material for this purpose as is was plentiful and fairly straight forward to manufacture. The first electrical systems to make use of insulators were telegraph lines; direct attachment of wires to wooden poles was found to give very poor results, especially during damp weather. The first glass insulators used in large quantities had an unthreaded pinhole. These pieces of glass were positioned on a tapered wooden pin, vertically extending upwards from the pole’s crossarm (commonly only two insulators to a pole and maybe one on top of the pole itself). Natural contraction and expansion of the wires tied to these “threadless insulators” resulted in insulators unseating from their pins, requiring manual reseating. Amongst the first to produce ceramic insulators were companies in the United Kingdom, with Stiff and Doulton using stoneware from the mid 1840s, Joseph Bourne (later renamed Denby) producing them from around 1860 and Bullers from 1868. Utility patent number 48,906 was granted to Louis A. Cauvet on July 25, 1865 for a process to produce insulators with a threaded pinhole. To this day, pin-type insulators still have threaded pinholes.

The Hemingray Glass Company operated factories in Kentucky and Indiana between 1848-1972 and was the largest manufacturer of glass insulators in the world. The Hemingray 42 was one of Hemingray’s most popular and prolific insulators. These were manufactured by the millions, so most are extremely common. Those “bumps” at the bottom of the insulator are called drip points. Hemingray patented drip points on May 2, 1893 as “teats” for drawing moisture off of the insulator. Hemingray produced two styles of drip points, sharp and later round drip points. This one features sharp drip points. Whilst there are many examples of insulators and they are becoming a unique collectable, this style is so common as to make re-purposing an interesting proposition.

Australian Crystal Glass Limited was established in 1915 in Wyndham Street, Alexandria, NSW, making pressed and hand blown glass. By 1917 hand blowing had ceased and only pressed continued. From 1922 to April 1926 the company became ‘Crystal Glass Ltd’ making items such as the famous glass fruit juicer, and then in 1926 they amalgamated with Australian Glass Manufacturer’s – Crown Glass Works and became known as The Crown Crystal Glass Works Co. Ltd (ref. M. Graham, Australian Glass of the 19th and early 20th Century, p.88). By 1932 The Crown Crystal Glass Co Ltd, was based at Waterloo, and their Trademark resembled that of a ‘map of Australia’. The Crown Crystal Glass Company merged with the American company Corning in the 1972, to become Crown Corning.

Australian Glass Manufacturers Co Ltd (1922 – 1939) registered in Victoria in 1922. The company changed it’s name to Australian Consolidated Industries Ltd, in 1939, to reflect diversification into building products The clear greenish glass of this insulator is reasonably common and 6 of slight variation in shade in stock at present.

The Whitall Tatum Company, or Whitall Tatum, was one of the first glass factories in America. Located in Millville, New Jersey, it operated from 1806 through 1938. The location was ideal for making glass because silica-based sand is plentiful in southern New Jersey, the Maurice River flowing through Millville provided a source of water, and plentiful forests provided energy for industrial processes. The Millville glass works was founded by James Lee and went through several changes of ownership. In 1838, John M Whitall became a partner in the business. He lived in Philadelphia and worked at the company’s headquarters there. In 1845 after his brother Israel Franklin Whitall joined, the firm became Whitall, Brother & Company. Later, Edward Tatum also joined the partnership and in 1857 the name was again changed to Whitall Tatum & Company and later in 1900 to Whitall Tatum Company. I.F. Whitall and Edward Tatum headed the company after John M Whitall retired in 1865, and the ownership was passed to their descendents. Whitall Tatum did not enter the insulator manufacturing market until around the time that Brookfield Glass Company closed it’s doors, that is, in 1922. However, they made up for lost time by producing millions of them during the ensuing years. Armstrong Cork Corporation purchased Whitall-Tatum in 1938 (with insulator production continuing at a remarkable rate, and the existing molds eventually being re-engraved with the ARMSTRONG name), and finally Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corporation took over in April of 1969. Many of the insulators continued to carry the “Armstrong” embossing, until about 1973, by which time all carried the “KERR” embossing.

We wire mostly with E14 240 Volt lampholders but the larger high tension examples can be wired with E27 type lampholders. We have included smaller insulators on wall lamps and a large variety of combinations are possible in this type of lamp.

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The dollar cost of using Edison Light bulbs has largely been smothered by all the talk of efficiencies and greenhouse emissions. Hysteria seems to abound when it comes to the humble light globe. What we need to focus on is just how much one of these old style bulbs will cost to run. According to yourhome.gov.au “Lighting is responsible for 10% of the average family’s electricity bills but in some homes this can be much higher. You could be wasting hundreds of dollars a year just lighting your home.” Wow 10%, so changing one  40Watt globe for an 11Watt globe will save about two fifths of FA.

Given that most people have some form of existing lighting, a better way to look at this problem is by cost comparison.

According to Your Home, a Victorian Government run website there is no such thing as a 40W incandescent bulb. Comparisons are based on an old 75Watt standard bulb. So we have added the 40 W and 60 W variety. We are also thinking about introducing a 15 Watt Edison Vintage globe very soon and this would be even more interesting.

Whilst efficiency plays a big role overall in terms of total energy use, it is not always the defining solution. In terms that people can understand we will attempt to lay the facts out as we see them.

By and large energy use is what makes carbon dioxide, if you use more electricity,  more greenhouse gas is created and released into the atmosphere. So the most interesting figure is how much energy is used per bulb. In essence how much does it cost by comparison with other lighting. We don’t need to worry about how bright a bulb is unless we have to add more light. Do we need more light or just better light? For that matter how much does it cost to run that beer fridge in the garage?

Light Globe Power Consumption

Now we are not suggesting you replace all your high efficiency lighting with old fashioned tungsten bulbs. In fact LED lighting looks to be the best bet for overall efficiency albeit at a high initial cost. What we suggest is that you think about the actual cost of eating a meal under a warm bare bulb for an hour each night or sit watching TV with just one lamp on. Use light efficiently, turn off main room lighting when it is not needed. Where you might like a candle lit dinner, try a bare Edison bulb. In our main office we have 10 X 10 Watt LED downlights and whilst they are not pretty, they are on all day and so high efficiency is the aim.

So in conclusion there seems to be far worse energy consumption problems than the odd light bulb. Just a hint, get rid of that beer fridge in the garage and buy your Crown Lager six at a time from the bottle shop…

Tomodachi Japanese restaurant makeover design and work completion has been performed by the good folks at StudioMKZ. It was a simple upgrade to the existing 300sqm. The Tomodachi Japanese restaurant is up at Broadway Shopping Centre. Shown here are images of the New Brass E27 lampholders and some larger exotic bulbs like the Plum spiral filament from Switzerland.

All the lighting gear supplied by Edison Light Globes was imported specially for this job and shipped overnight to Sydney. Due to the size of the order comprising of around 80 fittings and bulbs we did find getting everything in stock a challenge, but we got there in the end.

If you are in Sydney and looking for designers for this type of makeover get hold of Luisa Moran Interior Designer from StudioMKZ
Suite 406, The Cooperage Building
56 Bowman Street Pyrmont NSW 2009

Brass cage Steampunk Wall Light design is coming along and you can now have a better look at the design soon to be released.

We have been working on a prototype build and also working on some variations both in overall size and materials and colors. We assumed a bronze color and bronzed brass backing plate but the early test with a wooden block look good also. Perhaps a little more Victorian than Deco or industrial but interesting nonetheless.

There are a few pics we shot of an earlier actual build using real components that we hand made. The idea is that the actual components will be machine made to exact tolerances and plated as one color. Also shown is a shorter version of the design with a timber block mount.

Both sizes should eventually be able to be ordered online but the larger design will be available first. We should have a photograph of the working finished prototype online in a week or so.

An original Edison Swan Electric Co Ltd Lamp turned up in an estate this week and we were lucky enough to examine the contents and packaging.

There is a great deal of quite interesting history surrounding this particular lamp and the Johseph Swan Thomas Edison corporate and scientific relationship. The light globe we have is a 240V 60W tube lamp made “By Appointment to His Majesty The King” around the turn of the century at 155 Charing Cross Road London marked Royal EDISWAN Lamp. It looks to be a special purpose long filament lamp perhaps for scientific or industrial use having non E27 cap of fairly plain connections at each end of the tube. It is a Small Central Contact Patent Central Contact Holders or SCC Cap

In the year 1883 the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company, Limited was formed. The lamps manufactured by this company were marketed under the trade name “Ediswan.”

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was a British physicist and chemist, most famous for the invention of the incandescent light bulb before its independent invention by the American Thomas Edison. Swan’s first demonstration of the light bulb was at a lecture in Newcastle upon Tyne on 18 December 1878, but he did not receive a patent until 27 November 1880 (patent No. 4933) after improvement to the original lamp. His house (in Gateshead, England) was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb, and the world’s first electric-light illumination in a public building was for a lecture by Swan in 1880. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre in the City of Westminster, London was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, the first theatre and the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.

The common coupling of the name of Swan with that of Edison in connection with the incandescent electric lamp has often led to the notion that Swan collaborated with Edison in this invention. That was not so. Their work was completely independent, and although they knew that each of them was at work on the problem of devising a practical lamp, neither of them had either met or held any communication with the other. The conjunction of their names come about in 1883 when the two competing companies merged to exploit both Swan’s and Edison’s inventions.
In America, Edison had been working on copies of the original light bulb patented by Swan, trying to make them more efficient. Though Swan had beaten him to this goal, Edison obtained patents in America for a fairly direct copy of the Swan light, and started an advertising campaign which claimed that he was the real inventor. Swan, who was less interested in making money from the invention, agreed that Edison could sell the lights in America while he retained the rights in Britain.

While searching for a better filament for his light bulb, Swan inadvertently made another advance. In 1881, Swan developed and patented a process for squeezing nitro-cellulose through holes to form conducting fibres. His newly established Swan Electric Lamp Company (which by merger was to become the Edison and Swan United Company) used the cellulose filaments, that Swan had invented, in their bulbs. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although the English inventor Joseph Swan had used the term prior to this. Swan developed an incandescent light with a long lasting filament at about the same time as Edison, as Swan’s earlier bulbs lacked the high resistance needed to be an effective part of an electrical utility. Edison and his co-workers set about the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. In Britain, Joseph Swan had been able to obtain a patent on the incandescent lamp; though Edison had already been making successful lamps for some time, his patent application was incompletely prepared and failed.

It is an interesting story and one that showed a reasonable approach to the creation of a new industry where both inventors collaborated and were rewarded for their efforts. Quite different to the Patent wars that are being waged currently in the Computer and IT industries.

It is fascinating to read the packaging on this old lamp, in particular the IMPORTANT notice that states,

“In view of the paper shortage, this wrapper should not be thrown away or destroyed but should be handed to the local authority or organizations responsible for salvaging paper” Nice to see there was package disposal advice that long ago.

We can still get a lamp if this sort of size and shape as it is made carefully by hand currently in Switzerland. The 280mm 60W 24V tube lamp is one we are currently designing a wall fitting for and the rough drawings should be available in the very near future.

Well perhaps just a hint…

Nud Classic collection ceramic lampholders and coloured cord look great in a more contemporary home.

We are attempting to get as many variations of color as we can and photograph some with our specialist Edison Style Globes. Whilst not as efficient as a modern flourecent bulb they are intended for special bare bulb type presentation and the Nud lampholder and cloth cord team extremely well with these tungsten filament globes.

Where you are looking for that long cable effect, Nud also offer an extra long cord at 18m. The ceramic lampholders are quite a unique shape and provide a good base for heat produced by old vintage type globes. Hang the cords neatly or knot and tangle them for a stunning and whimsical effect.

Now available to order direct online from edisonlightglobes.com as complete unit, but an electrical contractor is required for installation.

I will post pics of these with our largest E27 Bulb at 120mm and perhaps some of the other globe shapes we have instock. If you are looking for a great bare bulb look in a contemporary space then Nud could be your answer.

Color perception is a tricky thing. Our brain does a great job at smoothing and correcting for color shift so that we perceive white light as much as possible. Colors look fairly normal to us under Incandescent light but not so with florescent.

Good article from Russia here regarding the nature of incandescent Vs Florescent lighting.

Florescent light does not have a full spectrum and so color “gaps” are perceptible. That is why people look a bit sickly and pale under flouro light. Photography has always been a problem as there is no way to accurately correct for these color gaps and so pictures look green with an uncorrectable lack of some colors totally.

The cart below shows the color spectrum output from common lighting solutions. Now whilst we should all strive to use less energy we also need to be aware that ordinary full spectrum light is at times preferable.

Steampunk show, Steamscape opening at Post Industrial Design goes OFF.
What a great turnout tonight for the Steamscape Exhibition.

Around 500 people turned up to see the Clockwork Butterfly fashion parade, the exhibition of Steampunk art and design, live music from the Penny Dreadfuls and the voice of our own Katie Haughton. The exhibition showed the steampunk movement through fashion, design, sculpture, painting and more. Staged in the smallish gallery in Barkley Street Footscray the crown spilled out into the streets and into the half demolished Victorian house next door. It was a night highlighted by the fashion, and not just the fashion by Clockwork Butterfly. Most of the crowd were dressed in a staggering variety of eclectic Victorian futuristic gear, a fantastic result and it looked amazing.

The rooms inside were dark, warm and gloomy with a hint of brass and cast iron here and there surrounded by top hats, lace and animal skins. All the locals were there along with the die-hards of the Steampunk movement.

Amazing scenes as the circus act payed out on the lawn in front of the old house next door with a crowd of a hundred or so watching on lit almost entirely by the fire=eaters flaming torch. The crowd had been treated to the fabulous “Food by Miranda” catering and complimentary wine.

Thanks must go to Jos and Mary and also thanks to those that had a chat about our little light bulb display, we hope you will be back next week as we set up a larger display of Steampunk Lighting. We had several shapes of bulbs on display with some hand made metal cages designed by Jos, from a large Swiss made bulbs to the small radio valve shaped bulbs bare. We hung a range of colored braid flex and showed the UK manufactured Brass and Bronze lampholders that show a 140 year tradition of quality.

“Steamscape” will be a Steampunk exhibition as part of the Loreal Fashion week Cultural Program

Steampunk lighting style at Steamscape Exhibition.

At Post Industrial Design in Footscray in March we are showing a range of lighting components with the work of sculptor Jos Van Hulsen. The exhibition will explore the steampunk movement through fashion, design, sculpture, painting and much much more. Following the opening night we will have on display a range of lighting examples and components available loose for purchase.

They have some of Melbourne’s top performers involved in the opening night. Be entranced by the amazing magic of Australia’s leading female magician Cath Jamison, wonder at fire and circus performances by Chris Bennett and be enthralled by the amazing voice of our very own Katie Houghton. Sit back and enjoy the fashion parade of Clockwork Butterfly and enjoy live music from the Penny Dreadfuls

The night is set to be a spectacle of entertainment, music and frivolity. Exhibiting artists and designers include: Jos Van Hulsen, Alexandra Chambers, Mad Uncle Cliff, Fyodor Krasniy, Olivia Duval, Jennie Rosenbaum, The Gently Unfurling Sneak, Oku Den, Chanelle Collier and Geoff Wilson.

Opening night: Friday 2^nd March (free event)
Time: 6 – 9 pm
Where: Post Industrial Design, 638 Barkly Street, West Footscray
Dress: Steampunk . . . if you dare?
Child friendly event

A Restored pottery lamp with bakelite and Edison bulb looks great with the larger Plum spiral type globe. This a metalic glaze 70′s type lamp and we fitted a switched bakelite lampholder and rewired in 3 core brown braided flex.

These bulbs tend to go a gold color over time as the tungsten vaporizes on the interior of the globe giving it an interesting look when turned off. Not sure if we can find a lampshade that would work on this or even if it is necessary. Good example of what one can do without a fancy lampshade on an otherwise ordinary looking lampbase. To install one of our E27 lampholders on a lampbase you will need a threaded rod and nut to secure the fitting and to stop the cable being pulled out we connected a cord grip inside the fitting.