Carbide Headlight Restoration

[jcuffe79]

Greetings all!

I just recently picked up an old carbide headlight. The plate reads Castle Lamp Company, Elmira, New York Model 1206. It is in decent shape but was wondering where I might be able to find spare parts and such. Has anyone ever fixed one of these up. I would love some advice.

[Terry Bond]

Lots more to restoring them than just shining up the brass. Some photos would be helpful. Castle is a pretty good quality lamp but like all early lamps, they may suffer from some cracking in the brass. Only real solution to that is to replace the damaged piece and that usually involves more than the average brass-polishing collector can handle. Sometimes it takes two or three lamps to make one good one. See if you can post some good photos and we can discuss further. Are you interested in cleaning it up to put on the book-shelf, restoring it to use? If you intend to resell it my recommendation is leave it alone and let someone who needs it do the work. I've collected brass for a long time and had some success restoring things for myself that don't need new parts made, but it's a very time consuming process.

Terry

[R W Burgess]

And just so you guys know, Terry put on an excellent CJE on these lights while in Melbourne, Fl during our Winter Meet.

Sometimes we forget that the AACA actually teaches AACA members about the restoration and identification on these types of automotive items, something you can not learn at the local Wally-Express-Zone store.

Learn while these fellows are still with us people!

Did I ask you about a Carbide light seminar Terry???

Wayne

PS: Added our CJE Instructor and his example!

[Terry Bond]

Thanks for the "plug" Wayne - the CJE was fun and I was impressed and pleasantly surprised at the number of newer and younger judges attending to learn more about Brass Cars. The expertise in that area is indeed declining, so it was refreshing to see the good crowd we had in Fla. Had some very gracious owners too who volunteered their vehicles for the CJE. I'm certainly not an expert but I do enjoy sharing my experience with brass era cars. We'll probably do that again in Charlotte and wherever else I can fit it in. Brass is beautiful!

Terry

[Seldenguy]

I have restored a few Castle headlamps such as you describe and have many extra parts. I do not have any glass reflectors left, sorry. Send me a PM on what you need, I may be able to help out. Bob

[jcuffe79]

Thanks for the all the advice. Here are some pictures of the carbide headlight that I picked up.

[jcuffe79]

My main goal for the lamp is to clean it up and if necessary do some minor repair to have it displayed on a bracket in my office at home or at work. The one main problem I am having with the disassembly is the brackets that hold the reflector in the back of the pot are so rusted in that I can't get them out to clean behind it. Any suggestions? Or would it be best to leave it be?

[Terry Bond]

Nice looking lamp - recommend you save some time and money for Hershey and find the mate for it! Looks like it was nickle plated. I'd recommend leaving the reflectors in the lamp. There is usually an asbestos pad sandwiched between the reflector and the back of the lamp that was used as a heat shield as well as a cushion for vibration. If you try to pull the reflector out you may end up pulling some of the silver plating off the reflector. Not even thinking about the dangers of the asbestos. The silvering looks pretty good and the crack really doesn't detract that much from it as a display piece. It should buff up nicely and the majority of the nickle will probably come off in the process. I don't see any cracks or serious dents. Looks like you'll need to come up with a burner and the elbow for the gas connection. Recommend you email Bob as he mentioned parts from previous restorations - he may have the right burner and gas line parts for you. If you can't find burners I may have a few in my "for sale at Hershey" box.

Terry