As a brass addict, I love to polish up old brass. I love the look of old items gleaming like new. Having said that, I do wonder if there is a right and wrong way of restoring old items. Recently, I fell in love with the look of an old Kayen table lamp. No paint on the fount, it's pure brass in all it's glory. Even more recently, I have purchased a couple of old Tilley table lamp bases. They are both painted a cream colour that either need re-painting or stripping back to brass and polishing. I wonder how many members feel that when restoring, it's important to get original details as accurately as possible, including paint work. Is it 'blasphemous' to think I'd rather polished brass to the original paint scheme?
My dictionary (Oxford Compact English Dictionary - 1231 pages, over 187,000 definitions - so not that compact, except relatively) defines 'restore' as to "bring back or attempt to bring back to the original state by rebuilding, repairing etc." and "bring back to a former condition" [from Latin restaurare]. My emphasis both times. It follows, therefore, that you cannot restore something to a condition it never was. Just sayin'...
My philosophy is to keep the item "original-as-is" or return it to "as-close-to-original" as possible. With many brass lamps and stoves, if they weren't painted, they were polished and clear lacquered: The problem with continually pushing brass is that you are likely to increase the risk of the tank developing stress cracks. Cheers Tony
Personally, I prefer to paint, but only if it is really needed. If the paint on the fount can be cleaned up a little, then do that, as nothing beats the origional.
Yes, I'd agree with that, Tony and John. I'd add only that continual polishing is unnecessary time, trouble and expense, particularly if you intend to use the item. If I bother at all, I try to return my stuff to what it looked like on the day it left the factory. Otherwise I would feel as if I'm just producing ornaments, house decorations, shiny trinkets...
Thanks all, especially you David for the English lesson. It's easy to see I left school the day I turned 15. I guess, the point about restoring was I would like the restore as close as possible, perhaps minus the paint. It's not like I'm adding something to take the flavour away, anyone could add a lick of paint and it would be A OK. I have read a lot of threads on cpl, where members don't seem to mind interchanging parts of different lamps or even manufacturing parts to make a lamp work. I guess leaving a coat of paint off isn't all that terrible? Thoughts?
Matty, I consider getting the item going again most important. Secondly it's a matter of practicality and I like and agree with David's point about continual polishing and the time expended. I tried to have many items in natural brass, polished and no lacquer but now I am struggling to maintain this view, so in some cases now I am happy to leave the item as is with original patina, so long as it is clean. However the painted Tilley table lamps TL106 and TL136, white or cream seem to be of an age where the paint is flaking or chipping badly and I tend to not leave them in this state but to strip the paint off and paint again, not always in the same colour I might add. I have one nice one done in Brunswick Green and the contrast with the brass is fantastic. I also repair irons and many are chromed or nickelled and it is just impractical and too expensive for me to try to get these back to original. (My nearest electroplater is 300km away.) A best quality VHT paint is often what I do. Go with what you are comfortable with. PS I have a Kayen HL7 table lamp too and it is all polished brass and it too is glorious. Iain
Iain, you raised some interesting points. I suppose it depends on if you like to polish brass or not as to how you view brass. Some, as you and David view it as labourious, I view it as therapy. I mean, polished brass, done right, lasts a long time before it gets out of hand. It's not like you have to polish daily or weekly, though that wouldn't hurt Your 2nd quote, about not always painting the same colour, strikes me as useful. Ok, by painting a lamp green instead of cream isn't using the enth degree of restoring properly but when the lamp is sitting in your loungeroom does that really matter? I guess you have to be prepared to cop critique if you posted a photo on a site such as cpl, but in the end, I reckon as long as it looks spectacular, what is the harm? Lastly, your first quote from above as to getting the lamp in working order first is a good point. I bet, I am no expert as you all know, that there are a million lamps out there that look a squillion dollars but the experts here can tell that this or that is wrong with the lamp. I am truly amazed how some of the experts like Dave and Jeff can have one squizz at a lamp and tell you when it was made, the idiosyncrasies of the lamp (wrong globe or wrong anything no matter, seemingly, what make the lamp is). Their knowledge and attention to detail is astonishing. I suspect they are few and far between though and unlikely to ever visit me on this island. I suspect that most visitors wouldn't know boo about lamps (like me) and I would only ever need to worry about attention to detail (as a restore) if I was ever going to sell the lamp.
For me it's a matter of how rare the item is. If it's something that is one of the stars of the collection I would like it to be as close to factory finish as possible. On the other hand if it's a model that there are oodles of then do what you like. As far as Tilley table lamps go, they're not that uncommon. I would say as long as you don't make any physical modifications then paint or no paint is pretty trivial. It can always be changed again later. On a completely different topic. You mentioned in another post that you come from an island near North Stradbroke. I'm intrigued as to which one?
Nils, I live on Russell Island. As I write this post, If it was daylight, I could look to my right, out the window, and across a passage to North Stradbroke Island some 300 yards away. Ferry services, funnily enough , ferry passengers from the island to the mainland port of Redland Bay. When I say port, it's a ferry port only. Once on the mainland I can drive to Brisbane airport in about 30 - 35 minutes.
Funny that I've never thought about the cluster of islands around the bottom of Nth Straddy. Never thought of them as being occupied. I lived at Deagon for a while so was more or less only interested in the northern part of Moreton Bay.
I am much more concerned with preservation than restoration. So polishing is not a good idea unless that was the original condition and you lacquer on top. So I am quite happy to see lamps painted the "Wrong" colour. Preserves the metal and a paint job can always be re done. What I don't like to see are lamps that were originally painted being polished without a lacquer finish. That just encourages deterioration. So the mantra is restore to function and preserve. ::Neil::
It's interesting (at least to me) how my views on this have changed over time and depending on the subject. I have three collecting interests, cars, militaria and GPAs (lanterns, stoves and lamps). I like the look of a nicely polished brass artifact a great deal. I've found, however, that it depends on what the artifact is whether I want it polished or not. British militaria has lots of brass bits and bobs, but I'll never polish those (excepting dress uniform buttons) because they would never have been polished in use. The last thing you want in the field is a nice shiney bit of brass screaming "Shoot here! I'm over here, shoot me next, please." With cars, no matter how nicely restored, if an old car is painted in some color that was not available when it was a new vehicle it just doesn't look right. I find this especially true if it is something I grew up with, an MGB or XKE or 240Z. I know what the factory colors were and a car painted in some other color just looks off. By the same token a lamp or lantern that has a brass tank but was sold painted just doesn't look right in polished brass. I learned this when I picked up a Coleman 159 lamp. It was painted in cream with gold and olive green accent stripes. Thank goodness the paint was worn enough to justify removing because that is one of the ugliest paint schemes Coleman ever produced. I polished the fount and the burner assembly and it cleaned up a treat and looked great. I put a coat of Renaissance Wax on it and set it on the shelf. Every time I look at it I realize it just isn't right. So it's going to get a paint job. It just won't be that hideous cream\gold\green one. Just my opinion, which is worth every penny you've paid for it.
Well tried to match mine to vent top colours etc No yellow vent thou .Still have brass ones here still but they look good base and shade same colour . Bob
Hi, I'm Jørgen - new to CPL. This is a very interesting topic: what to do when changing old things... because that is really what is going on. We change them, even when we believe that we are bringing them back to what they used to be. Because it means that they are no longer what they were recently... It is a matter of objective. Which goal do we have with our work on the lamp? Do we want to show to ourselves or people around us - or some known or unknown people in the future - what was once manufactured? Then we should try to bring back the lamp to its original state. Do we want to show what people actually had in their homes, what they used every day? Then we should allow for all the repairs, changes and whatever has been done to the lamp over time to remain, and then simply prevent the future from ruining it - we should try to freeze time where it is now. Or do we want to create something beautiful, a showcase for our skills in polishing and painting and repairing, something that we can proudly present to others as partly our own work? Well, then all options are open. We can build a "custom car" out of the lamp. A last possibility, of course, is to see the artifact, the lamp, as something to be used - meaning that it should continuously be repaired, repainted, and whatever is needed for it to serve whatever purpose we at any time find that it should have. Then we can electrify the lamp, change it into a flower pot, and maybe some day change it back to something it has been before. My personal opinion is that all these objectives, and probably more, are valid and present in this world. The mix of it all means that some items are getting more and more rare while others are preserved beyond their useful lifetime. And day by day a bunch of historical evidence disappears forever while giving room for new actions and results, soon to become historical evidence themselves. We cannot freeze time for everything ever manufactured, but we cannot allow ourselves either to destroy all evidence of history. So before any change or destruction, before any replacement of an old part with a new one, before any paint job - we need to think about what we or others will think about this in the future. If what we are now considering to destroy by what we now consider to be an improvement is something that will some day be missed - because then maybe we shouldn't do it.
