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Mystery item - pneumatic ?

Billtodd

Titanium
Hi All,

I've had this thing knocking about in my drawer for a while , I believe it came from an engineers tool chest , but I have no idea what it might be for.

It consists of a simple short tube 50mm / 2" long 13mm 1/2" diameter , that appears to be soldered to a 1/4" pipe barb. The screw on end cap has a short 25mm/1" curved tube 1.5mm - 1/16" ID fitted to one side . diametrically opposite is a small hole 0.5mm - 20thou" .

It looks shop made except the cap has been stamped "Patent applied for"

Answers please on the back of a five-pound note :-)
 

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Yes it's ''Spitfire'' blowlamp, for towns (coal) gas at the old mains pressure, (<> 6'' WG - IIRC) you have the non adjustable pattern @3/9ea in Buck & Hickmans 1953 cat' the adjustable pattern was 5/-

Re the £5 note, ..no can do as the last bugger who borrowed it has yet to return it.
 
Yes it's ''Spitfire'' blowlamp, for towns (coal) gas at the old mains pressure, (<> 6'' WG - IIRC) you have the non adjustable pattern @3/9ea in Buck & Hickmans 1953 cat' the adjustable pattern was 5/-

Re the £5 note, ..no can do as the last bugger who borrowed it has yet to return it.
Interesting information. But I'm curious, was the basic idea that if you had coal gas for lighting piped to your house, you'd attach a line to this and presto, hand held blow torch?

Was it for soldering, or was it just a heater like a bunsen burner?

I used to enjoy the series "secret life of machines" and in an episode about the light bulb, Tim Hunkin showed that he had an old gas lamp in his kitchen because he enjoyed the warm glow. But he never explained where the gas supply was from. Are there still coal gas lines piped to houses in parts of the UK?

Didn't these lamps produce carbon monoxide?

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Interesting information. But I'm curious, was the basic idea that if you had coal gas for lighting piped to your house, you'd attach a line to this and presto, hand held blow torch?

Was it for soldering, or was it just a heater like a bunsen burner?

I used to enjoy the series "secret life of machines" and in an episode about the light bulb, Tim Hunkin showed that he had an old gas lamp in his kitchen because he enjoyed the warm glow. But he never explained where the gas supply was from. Are there still coal gas lines piped to houses in parts of the UK?

Didn't these lamps produce carbon monoxide?

Sent from my SM-J737P using Tapatalk

Yes, just connect it to the household / premises gas supply (usually with red ''India rubber tubing'') for soldering and small jobs, workshops like jewellers and spectacle frame makers used them.

AFAIK here is no coal gas in the UK today, it's all Natural generally from ''under '' the North Sea or the continental shelf, ..the changeover from coal to natural started around the late 60's (plenty of guff here north sea gas conversion - Google Search )

Yes gas lighting , like cooking and heating produced carbon monoxide (as I believe does the burning of all carbon fuels) ………..but applications like lighting and domestic cookers and small''oversink'' water heater (which Brits remember the Ascot? ;) ) were deemed so low output as not to need a flue, ………..bearing in mind that houses were mush ''draftier'' in days of yore.
 
Yes, just connect it to the household / premises gas supply (usually with red ''India rubber tubing'') for soldering and small jobs, workshops like jewellers and spectacle frame makers used them.

AFAIK here is no coal gas in the UK today, it's all Natural generally from ''under '' the North Sea or the continental shelf, ..the changeover from coal to natural started around the late 60's (plenty of guff here north sea gas conversion - Google Search )

Yes gas lighting , like cooking and heating produced carbon monoxide (as I believe does the burning of all carbon fuels) ………..but applications like lighting and domestic cookers and small''oversink'' water heater (which Brits remember the Ascot? ;) ) were deemed so low output as not to need a flue, ………..bearing in mind that houses were mush ''draftier'' in days of yore.
Thanks for the information. Do you think Tim Hunkin was running his old gas light off a modern gas supply? Maybe with a regulator to contend with the higher pressure in the modern system?

The draftier house makes sense. I always wondered how you could have multiple gas lights burning indoors and not succumb to CO poisoning. Guess everyone just lived with low level CO poisoning as a norm.

Steve.

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A clarification: all complete combustion of any gas or hydrocarbon in general produce CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2), NOT carbon monoxide (CO).

Back in the days (and possibly still now, somewhere) carbon monoxide was mixed with methane in the city gas, since it burns roughly at an equivalent rate.

Carbon monoxide is produced by distilling coal to make coke, by making charcoal by heating wood in high temperature ovens, burners lacking proper air supply, and in many other ways.

Paolo
 
Thanks for the information. Do you think Tim Hunkin was running his old gas light off a modern gas supply? Maybe with a regulator to contend with the higher pressure in the modern system?

The draftier house makes sense. I always wondered how you could have multiple gas lights burning indoors and not succumb to CO poisoning. Guess everyone just lived with low level CO poisoning as a norm.

Steve.

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Possibly, I know Nat gas (& LPG) will burn nicely in a mantle - basically it's to do with the fuel flow rate and air / fuel ratio. ...with I believe (as in I'm not sure??? ) Nat gas needing more air for a clean combustion than Coal gas.
 
A clarification: all complete combustion of any gas or hydrocarbon in general produce CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2), NOT carbon monoxide (CO).

Back in the days (and possibly still now, somewhere) carbon monoxide was mixed with methane in the city gas, since it burns roughly at an equivalent rate.

Carbon monoxide is produced by distilling coal to make coke, by making charcoal by heating wood in high temperature ovens, burners lacking proper air supply, and in many other ways.

Paolo

Thankyou for the clarification Paolo, BOTOH neither of those gases does you much good
 
Humans who smoke have a hemoglobin concentration of carbon monoxide as high as 3-4%. This is from incomplete combustion of tobacco. Lots of other odd chemicals as well. Car exhaust has a much higher ‘dose’ of CO than smoking a cigarette or a properly functioning natural gas burner, stove or light and is a more frequent cause of CO death. Again from incomplete combustion. The indoor gas burners definitely do produce small amounts of CO and it is possible with multiple flames burning in well sealed houses to get toxic CO levels. Just takes quite awhile. And is easier to achieve in people who also smoke. For normal use tho, with the large volume of air in a house to dilute the toxin, and almost complete combustion to CO2 and water vapor, a gas cook top or stove used for an hour won’t raise the indoor CO level much and is safe.

To further complicate the discussion, CO also will burn..

L7
 
Thankyou for the clarification Paolo, BOTOH neither of those gases does you much good

I must have CO2 to change the ph level of my blood in order to be urged to take a next breath. This is most important while I take an afternoon nap! It's so difficult to remember to do these small details while sleeping.

Fortunately, being a "Practical Machinist", I quite handily produce all the CO2 that I require so long as I inhale a good quantity of N2 mixed with O2. On it's own, the O2 can be a real killer!
 
Yes gas lighting , like cooking and heating produced carbon monoxide (as I believe does the burning of all carbon fuels) ………..but applications like lighting and domestic cookers and small''oversink'' water heater (which Brits remember the Ascot? ;) ) were deemed so low output as not to need a flue, ………..bearing in mind that houses were mush ''draftier'' in days of yore.

Very true. We have a gas stove in the kitchen and even running the oven for hours while roasting a turkey will not produce a reading on a residential CO detector with digital readout. Most older houses have enough air infiltration for small amounts of CO to not be a problem but new construction houses are so tight that active air exchange (through a heat exchanger) is a code requirement. Around here ALL residences are required to have at least one smoke detector and at least one carbon monoxide detector on each floor.
 
Used to be a popular method of snuffing it ...stick your head in the oven......So called "Town gas" was a mixture of Carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced by blowing steam over hot coke .The process was invented in the USA in the 1840s,and when used in England ,users used to straight distilled coal coal gas were killed in droves by the monoxide......But in Victorian times ,a few deaths were neither here nor there ,and progress was everything.
 
I must have CO2 to change the ph level of my blood in order to be urged to take a next breath. This is most important while I take an afternoon nap! It's so difficult to remember to do these small details while sleeping.

Fortunately, being a "Practical Machinist", I quite handily produce all the CO2 that I require so long as I inhale a good quantity of N2 mixed with O2. On it's own, the O2 can be a real killer!

If yah don't mind the tubing, we can prolly run a medium sized FORGE off yer methane whilst yah nap as well.
 
Used to be a popular method of snuffing it ...stick your head in the oven......So called "Town gas" was a mixture of Carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced by blowing steam over hot coke .The process was invented in the USA in the 1840s,and when used in England ,users used to straight distilled coal coal gas were killed in droves by the monoxide......But in Victorian times ,a few deaths were neither here nor there ,and progress was everything.

Hong Kong the "Towngas" - name of the utility as well - has been supplied for years not off "the obvious" cryogenic-cooled "LNG", but more ordinary ocean tanker loads of ignorant liquid Naptha "cracked" to Methane (mostly):

Types of Domestic Fuel Gases and Their Properties (246)

Not so scary, piped.

Scarier the million or so older kitchens where 'Butagaz' and such sit, two jugs per, one in use, one spare or just emptied, and have to be choggied up and down stairs on and off trucks or the odd on-call delivery two to four hung off a coolie's leg-powered bicycle.
 
I remember the Ascot.
Next door neighbours had one in their kitchen.
We could only see it when the lady of the house opened her side door to walk her Saluki.
The Saluki puppies were about £75 in 1953.
The neighbours were well off, they had a huge dining room.
When food was short my mother used to lift me up so I could see over the hedge and watch the neighbours eat their lunch.
I felt well nourished when I had watched two courses eaten.
Eventually the neighbours noticed and closed the curtains.
After that calories were in really short supply.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday mother stole or borrowed food from somewhere.
Tuesday, Wednesday, no food, mother would read recipes to us.
Thursday, Friday, no food, we chewed on pictures of meals cut from used newspapers.

Eleven weeks locked up, wishing I had some paint so I could compare the evaporation rates.
Elated by a new PM thread about tramming a pillar drill!
Sorry for the digression.
Best wishes to all PM users.
 
Elated by a new PM thread about tramming a pillar drill!

Fat times, we can pillory a trammer or afford hard-cooked liver to repair a shoe sole instead of eatin' of the both.

We gets really short, I have more than a few recipes put by for saw-tying frogs legs left over from makin' shop-fab'ed steel-toad boots, still others for stew made of cone-head leather belting, fresh from spares, or used, jerked and smoked, either one.
 
For those who don't know what an Ascot over sink heater or multipoint was

Over sink https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/d/d7/Im195009Pl-Ascot.jpg

Multipoint Vintage advertisement for Ascot multi point gas water heaters dated January 17th 1936 in the Illustrated Carpenter and Builder magazine Stock Photo - Alamy

FWIW, when the over sinks were converted to nat gas, there was always a delay between the gas valve opening and ignition from the pilot light, resulting in a good old fashioned '' WHOOOF'' as the main burner lit :D
 








 
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