Topic: Target balls, grenades and lightbulbs - Glass made to break

[Frank]

If you spent a months wages on one light bulb you might be disinclined to throw it away when it burnt out.

[Leni]

If you spent a months wages on one light bulb you might be disinclined to throw it away when it burnt out.

Well, yes; which is why I understand the idea of repairing them.  But do you mean to say that if they couldn't afford to get them repaired they just made a little crochet cover and kept them - to put on display, or something?   :shock:  

And my kids think I'm barmy for keeping old jam jars and bottles  :oops:  :roll:

Leni

[Frank]

Early days of electric light saw many of the working class having their single electric light fitted over their kitchen table so that they could do home work. In the earliest days the bare wires would be trailed up the wall and across the ceiling in a wooden channel. They were given free cabling but would have to pay a very high price for their electricity. The middle classes could pay for their wiring, get cheaper electricity and would usually have bare light bulbs so that they could show off their wealth. It was probably this social group that decorated their bulbs and they would be hung over the mantlepiece as a testament to how long they had owned electric light. The lightbulbs were less efficient then but still lasted around 1,000 hours or longer.

The rich would have highly ornamental bulbs or shades and I doubt were inclined to decorate the dead bulbs. They also paid the least for electricity or owned their own generator.

Fancy bulbs (All hand blown, some mould blown, circa 1900) http://www.ysartglass.com/zdbk/Bulbs/vvg/vvga7.htm

[Leni]

Fancy bulbs (All hand blown, some mould blown, circa 1900) http://www.ysartglass.com/zdbk/Bulbs/vvg/vvga7.htm

Oh, those are so *pretty*!  :shock:  

Why don't we have pretty light bulbs these days   :?  :roll:

On the other hand, how efficient were they?  And were they more fragile, or more liable to 'blow'?  

Leni

[Frank]

They gave out less light than modern bulbs and more heat, so it was not wasted.

For the most part they are not as fragile as modern bulbs, in so far as the few I have dropped bounced without breaking... try that with a new Chinese one. Because they were made with greater care the weakness of the manufacturing methods was compensated by greater tolerances.

1,000 was considered the norm in the early 1900's but many lasted a lot longer with several reports from test of 5,000 hours or more. But the record goes to this one which is still burning http://www.centennialbulb.org/index.htm after over 900,000 hours.

[Max]

Leni said:  Why don't we have pretty light bulbs these days  

Wellllllll....funny you should say that.  I keep meaning to pop into Habitat (I think that's the place) to buy one of their 'fancy lightbulbs'!

I think (suddenly I feel unsure...did I dream it??) they have groovy bulbs with the filaments made into colourful flowers...and other things...

Did I dream it??   :shock:  :x

[Frank]

You can get them everywhere now, they are neons. eBay can be cheaper OR  more expensive!

They come with just about any content from cute to lewd.


And doesn't that target ball look great when it splashes up on the screen as you open this thread

[Anne]

Gosh Frank, that's amazing! I also recall reading of someone in the UK who had a lightbulb from the 1930's which finally went after over 60 years use. I thought that was incredible enough, but 100+ years... Wow! :shock:

[Bernard C]

Anne — We had a very old Edison screw monster in the scullery (first of the outbuildings, and the largest room in the house) at 2 Rowley Avenue, Stafford.   That was 30 years ago.    The house had rather lethal DC wiring, badly converted to AC.    I destroyed several pairs of side cutters before discovering fuses in both the neutral and live circuits and worked out what was happening!   It also had gas lighting and a rainwater collection and filtration system!

Bernard C.  

[Anne]

Bernard, it's hard to credit that so late in the 20th century that houses like that still existed - and possibly still do even into the 21st century. Having said that, it's not too many years ago that the gas lamps were removed from Woolworths in Kendal. They were certainly there long after I left school in the mid-70's, and there were gas lights along the station platforms at Oxenholme until about the same time. Easy to forget in our high-tech modern world isn't it? :roll: