This archive of Bill Nelson's 2001 web site was provided by Fred Fox and is sponsored by:
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CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE AND LINKS TO ALL PAGES ON THIS SITE TABLE OF CONTENTS HISTORY THE TIMELINE MANUFACTURER'S HISTORIES THE PATENT PAGES THE PRE-ELECTRIC ERA VINTAGE ADVERTISING THE LIGHT SET GALLERIES RELATED LINKS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, PAGE 2 RE-LIGHTING YOUR BUBBLE LIGHTS, CONTINUED: Now that your NOMA Biscuits are bubbling happily away, let's try another light, this time a Royal "Crown" type light. Remove the bubble tube as before-by a good soaking in some hot water. It will come out just as easily as it did in your NOMA light. The plastic used in these lights is a bit harder than that of NOMA's, so the freezing procedure will not be necessary. Look around the seam carefully to see if you can locate a tiny separation somewhere to use as a starting point. If so, great! If not, you'll have to make a starting place yourself. In either case, press the long edge (not the point) of your knife into the seam, and then carefully begin to wiggle it back and forth. Use patience here, and don't put on too much pressure or become impatient. With continued wiggling of the knife blade, the two halves of the crown will eventually give up and come apart. You'll notice that the halves were put together with interlocking shoulders, and it is this locking arrangement that prevents light leakage at the seam. With the two parts now apart, change out the lamp, and use silicone as before to secure it into place. Again, take care that you do not block ANY ventilation holes. Reassemble and glue your halves together, silicone the bubble tube back in place, and you're second project is complete! Finally, we'll talk a little about the famous and highly collectible miniature base series-type Paramount ring or saucer bubble light. As before, your bubble tube will come out with a little coaxing from our bowl of hot water. These beautiful lights are not glued together, but use a snap-lock method of closure that can be more frustrating to take apart than the other types. A look underneath the light will show what I'm talking about: you'll see a series of little tabs or teeth holding the parts together. At first glance, it will seem quite impossible to push all of these little teeth in at once, but I use a procedure that makes the job easy. Run to Wal-Mart or K-Mart, and buy the small size bottle of their store brand of pain reliever, such as their versions of Advil or Tylenol. Hopefully, you won't actually need the pills for this project, but the bottles themselves will be found to be quite useful. The top of these little bottles will be the exact size you need to help out with all of those pesky teeth. Open the bottle, and then put the base of your bubble light into it and press down. Be sure that all of the teeth are just inside the rim of the bottle. If you've selected the correct bottle size, you'll see that since the teeth are slightly beveled they are all being pressed in at the same time, and the bottom of the light will pop off nicely. So far, so good! Now you'll see that the light bulb itself appears to be permanently in place, held in position by the solder blob on the base. Not to worry-a little very careful effort with the tip of the X-Acto knife will shear the solder away, allowing removal of the lamp. If you are quite ambitious, you might even use a soldering iron to remove the solder spot, but be sure not to overheat the lamp base and cause any melting of the plastic base. Once the solder is removed, press the base on the washcloth to pop out the lamp. Reinsert the new bulb, being sure to align the solder blob in the slot provided for it. You may have to trim the blob on the new lamp before reinsertion. If you want to be really nifty, you can add a bit of new solder to the spot where it was shaved, so that the light will look factory-fresh and no one will be able to tell that the light was ever changed out. If you are not using a soldering iron, carefully silicone the lamp in place as in our earlier projects. Snap your base pieces together, set the bubble tube back in place with silicone, and once again, your job is done! Most types of bubble lights can be relamped with a bit of care and effort. If you are having problems or need more help, feel free to e-mail me. I HAVE AN OLD BUBBLE LIGHT TREE THAT IS SHEDDING. CAN ANYTHING BE DONE TO STOP THIS, AND WHAT IS THE TREE MADE OF? The old bubble light trees from various manufacturers are made of cardboard, metal and a material called Visca, and early artificial tree material. Over the years, the Visca will become brittle and dry, eventually getting to the point where the slightest movement will break of needles. To date, I know of no procedure to prevent this shedding or to stop it once it has started. Some collectors will choose to "rebush" their trees,
using modern artificial garland material to restore the trees to their former
glory.
Gene Teslovic has kindly provided us with a bit
of information on how to restore these old trees. Gene writes: "Concerning
recovering Visca trees, it is easy, but a little time consuming. You have to
shop for the correct material, and try to locate some artificial garland that is
a s close to your tree's original covering material as possible. Look for
something with no more than a one inch wide branch. I just get a 9 foot garland
and disassemble it, unwinding all of the 'branches' from the main length. Each
of these pieces will be about 12 inches long so just attach them together making
one continuous length of one inch vinyl 'Visca'. I start with about 20 feet
because you can keep adding more if you need it. Begin wrapping the 'arms' of
the tree, covering each socket and then moving up the arm. Go down the arm, wrap
the socket, then back up Starting at the bottom, take a piece of covering around the
center pole or cone to the length of the branch, usually as long as an arm. The
rest is your long length end. When you have one branch as long as you need it,
twist it tight with the long length end around the pole of cone. Measure the
long length end the same as your short piece and snip it off. You now have your
first 2 branches. Continue the process for the bottom branches and as you work
up the tree, your branches get shorter. When you are done, you can trim the
branches with wire cutters, in case the shape is not just right. If
necessary, you can wrap another length of Visca around the pole or cone to snug
it all up and to cover any openings left. The procedure is not very hard but as
I said, just time consuming. Once you get the pattern down, it goes easy. A lot
of the garlands sold today are loosely wound and easy to disassemble." WHAT IS ALL OF THAT CRYSTAL-LIKE STUFF IN MY BUBBLE LIGHT TUBES? Many bubble lights, especially the earlier ones, have activator chemicals in the tubes, to help with the bubbling effect. Most of the time, these are either common table salt or sugar crystals, which will not dissolve in the methylene chloride. Sometimes, these activator crystals will have been fused into big lump in the bottom of the bubble tube-this was done on purpose during the manufacturing process. In the case of the oil-filled Paramount ring or saucer bubble lights, the crystals are small pieces of pumice, intended to help start the bubbling action and enhance the sparkle of the tiny bubbles that the oil produces. With the Royal brand of bubbling lights, the activator crystals are larger than in most other brands, and the crystals have a tendency to darken as well. HOW CAN A SMALL LIGHT BULB GET HOT ENOUGH TO BOIL THE WATER IN MY BUBBLE LIGHTS? The bubble tube does not contain water, but is filled with a chemical called methylene chloride. This chemical has a very low boiling point, so even the small amount of heat generated by a tiny light bulb will cause it to boil rapidly. In fact, it will even boil from the heat of your hand! HOW CAN I TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN OIL-FILLED PARAMOUNT BUBBLER AND A METHYLENE CHLORIDE FILLED ONE? There are actually two ways to do this. First, examine the movement of the fluid-if it is quick and water like, it is most certainly methylene chloride, for the oil-filled tubes show a slow, heavy movement of the fluid. Secondly, the oil filled tubes always contain large, metallic-looking flakes that are actually little bits of pumice in the tubes, while the methylene-chloride tubes have none. WHAT TYPE OF OIL IS IN MY PARAMOUNT OIL-FILLED SAUCER BUBBLE LIGHTS? I am not certain what type of oil is used in the tubes, but I have often heard that it is rapeseed. The actual patent for the oil lights, number 2,412,171 specifies rapeseed, castor or cod liver oils, and describes the addition of a small amount of the traditional methylene chloride or ether as well. WHAT ARE "SERIES" AND "MULTIPLE" WIRED SETS? HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT? Series outfits are wired in a series, meaning that electric current must flow through each lamp in the string to complete the circuit. The burnout of a single lamp will cause all of the others to go dark as well. Parallel (or Multiple) wired strings are arranged so that each lamp gets power independently of the others. The failure of one or more lamps has no affect on the others. I'M CONFUSED ABOUT THE BASE SIZES OF THE DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THESE TO ME? This is a confusing area, mainly because of the "mixed" terminology used when describing Christmas lights. Nowadays, we refer to the lights by their glass envelope size only, and call them (quite incorrectly, I might add) merely C-6, C-7 and C-9 lights. The "C" designation technically refers only to the glass envelope size of the lamp, measured in eighths of an inch at the widest point, and is not an indication of the base size. Theoretically, any base size can have any glass envelope size attached to it. Lamps are properly described by both their glass and base sizes, for example "C-6 miniature base". American lamps are described by the glass envelope type and size, with C being "conical", G being "globe or globular" and T being "tubular". Base sizes are miniature, candelabra, intermediate, and standard, with standard referring to the household size base we are used to today. Here is a chart of the common types of Christmas lights:
Most common bubble lights are series wired miniature base, while some are the candelabra multiple wired type. The Lighted Ice type lamps can be either base size, as can the tubular candle shaped lamps. The miniature base Christmas lamps are no longer manufactured, but you'll find the candelabra and intermediate base lamps are still available, although in slightly different shapes than their older cousins. HOW CAN I DETERMINE WHICH BASE SIZE MY LIGHTS ARE? The easiest way to do this is to measure the diameter of the base with a ruler. Miniature base lights will measure approximately 3/8" across, candelabra bases measure about 1/2", and the intermediate bases measure close to 5/8". Measure carefully, for as you can see each size is only about 1/8" larger than the previous one. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARBON AND TUNGSTEN FILAMENTS? Carbon filaments are just that: carbon based light filaments that used up huge amounts of current and gave off a great amount of heat. Extremely inefficient, the hairpin or horseshoe shaped carbon filaments burn with a warm orange glow and are easily recognizable due to this fact. The carbon used in household filaments was replaced with tungsten in 1907, but that material was not used in Christmas lighting until 1916. Tungsten filaments are far more efficient, using much less current and giving off a bright yellow-white light, and in fact tungsten is the same material used in the filaments of today's household light bulbs. These filaments are tiny, tightly coiled wires of tungsten which are far more durable than their stiff carbon counterparts. WHY DO MY CARBON FILAMENT LAMPS BURN WITH DIFFERENT BRIGHTNESS'S FROM LAMP TO LAMP? This is one of the great disadvantages to carbon filaments-inconsistency in brightness from lamp to lamp. It is not a defect in the lamp or an indicator of pending burnout, it is merely a reflection of the times when these lamps were made. The lighting industry was still developing, and efforts were underway to correct the brightness problem. When new, lamps were factory matched to ensure even brightness from lamp to lamp within a string, but the failure of a lamp and its subsequent replacement was a problem, as almost certainly the new one would not match the light output of the others. The earliest bulbs were rated for brightness in candlepower, with one candlepower being the usual power of a Christmas lamp. These lamps would have small, oval stickers on them indicating their brightness rating. CAN I SAFELY MIX CARBON AND TUNGSTEN FILAMENT LAMPS TOGETHER ON THE SAME LIGHT STRING? This question must be answered with a definite "no". The electrical resistance ratings of the two filament types are so dramatically different that they will not burn satisfactorily when used together on the same string. Most early lighting sets even placed a warning on their boxes not to mix the two types together, as premature burnout would result. KEEP CHECKING BACK, AS MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ADDED TO THIS SECTION OF THE WEBSITE. END OF CATEGORY CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE AND LINKS TO ALL PAGES ON THIS SITE TABLE OF CONTENTS HISTORY THE TIMELINE MANUFACTURER'S HISTORIES THE PATENT PAGES THE PRE-ELECTRIC ERA VINTAGE ADVERTISING THE LIGHT SET GALLERIES RELATED LINKS
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Note: This is an archive of the late Bill Nelson's "Antique Christmas Light" web site as it existed in 2001. Except for contact information, link updates, and some information that has been lost, we have attempted to keep the text and illustrations as Bill presented them. However, the original pages included much outdated HTML code and graphic conventions, so we have done a lot of work "behind the scenes" to bring you this archive. Consequently:
OldChristmasTreeLights? and FamilyChristmasOnline? are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications? (www.btcomm.com).
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