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WICKS TO FIT THE HEATERS LISTED
BELOW - AND MORE!
Unique Specialty wicks
for
19th Century lamps
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World's Largest Selection of Wicks!
Wicks for virtually every heater, stove and lamp made since 1850
Sans Rival Chimney for 14''' Kosmos Lamps
and
Student Lamps with a 2"
fitter chimney
Kosmos Lamp History -
Sans Rival Chimney History -
Sans Rival Dimensions -
Purchase the Sans Rival Chimney -
Test Results by Peter Brickell
(More
information on Kosmos lamps)
Wild & Wessel of Berlin (W&W) in 1865 developed the "Kosmos"
burner, where a flat-wick formed is round. Wild & Wessel was
producing a side-draft burner in 1883 with a flame spreader, a year
before the Henkle patent flame spreader was put into production by
Charles Upton in his Rochester lamps. (See more on side draft
burners here.)
Both side draft and center draft lamps were produced
concurrently for years, side draft burners being less expensive to
produce because the font did not require the expense of a center draft
tube. Indeed, side draft "Kosmos" lamps are still in production,
more than half a century after the last Rayo center draft lamp was produced
in August, 1955 in Meriden, CT.
Both side draft and center draft lamps employ the
flame from fuel burning above a wick to provide light. The size
and shape of the flame front determined the light output. In
general, center draft lamps used a flame spreader to produce a wide,
relatively flat flame. Side draft lamps used flame height to have
a sufficient flame front to provide adequate lighting.
Center draft lamps generally had a burner cone which
provided a constriction to induce a draft, whereas for a side draft
burner that necessary
constriction was part of the chimney. And that is the beauty of the Sans
Rival chimney - it was designed to encourage the flame to be stable at 3
1/2 to 4" in height by using triple chimney constrictions to increase
the draft. The increased draft associated with the Sans Rival
chimney induces a cooler burner and font, and that means the flame is
more stable, burning for many hours without changing the flame height.
[Please note there were many types and
styles of
"Kosmos" lamps, some with true wick carriers, some
without. Some used wide flame spreaders and require a bulge style chimney (true
Matador) while others used a narrow flame spreader but nevertheless used
a unique constriction type chimney, such as the
Imperial/Vulcan lamps made by Wild & Wessel.
A few rare lamps used a straight chimney. In general, for
those 14''' side draft burners which did not use a flame spreader, the
Sans Rival chimney is literally without rival.]
| Sans_Rival
14''' Kosmos
Chimney, 2.031" base diameter, 10 3/4" tall -
$37.95 Borosilicate glass, made in the USA from a mold made
from an original German Sans Rival chimney. |
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Made in Germany. "There where several firms that imported “Sans Rival”
chimneys into Norway from Germany: Peter M Kolderup (est 1854) and Johan
Tomsen A/S (est 1904) being the best known.
"As for the age, these were catalogued sometime
between 1900 - 1930, though production probably ended during
WW I. This I can say fairly accurate because of
oil lamps I've seen in museums and photos from back in the day
where one could see the sans rival chimney fitted to various
oil lamps.
The Thomsen imported chimneys were the most exclusive ones:
superb clarity, very heavy being made of thick "cristal" glass
and almost never have air bubbles in them." (See image
below) Information provided by William Sogge |
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The dimensions of the Sans Rival chimney are
shown at right. Expand the photo by clicking on it.
They are precise copies of the original chimney, but made in
thermal shock-resistant borosilicate glass.
Base diameter: 2.031"; 1.905" up
to the pinch, which is 1.175". The draft control
constriction is 1.039" in diameter. The base of the upper
chimney is 1.030" in diameter, tapering out to 1.184" at the
top. The overall height is 10 3/4". Both ends are
highly polished so they will not chip.
The two extra
constrictions in the chimney draw the flame up to form a tall,
beautiful "Christmas Tree" effect in brilliant white light,
unlike any other Kosmos chimney. |
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By far the most common size
Kosmos-style lamp is the 14'''. They were produced in
many countries in Europe for over a century. It is
therefore no surprise that chimney base diameters varied
considerably for what was listed as standard 14''' lamps.
The Sans Rival chimney has a base diameter of 2.031". I
have other 14''' chimneys which range from 2.00" to 2.109"
diameter - about the maximum diameter which will fit the
burner. All chimneys get hot in use, and glass expands
when hot. There should be spring finger tension to hold
the chimney in place so when hot the chimney has room to
expand. Never used
your fingers to bend chimney prongs - it is far too easy to
bend the fingers too far and break them, plus the individual
fingers will not be adjusted evenly. If a chimney fits
too tightly, gently bend the fingers out from the inside by
using the convex side of a teaspoon. To bend chimney
fingers in, something about the diameter of an AAA battery can
be held horizontally right in the curl of the chimney fingers
and moved around the outside of the fingers, gently bending
them in to have a uniform spring tension. Start the bending
process at the wick raiser knob and end there for uniform
concentricity. |
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At far right is a photo of the hunting cabin in
northern Norway where William Sogge found the original Sans Rival
Chimney. And there is the 14''' Kosmos lamp burning
brightly in the same place it has hung for a hundred years.
Near right photo - the
signed original Sans Rival which was used to make the mold for
my Sans Rival chimneys. |
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At right is a photo of a typical 14''' Kosmos
Concierge. Note the brilliant white light in the
"Christmas Tree" effect from the Sans Rival Chimney.
The Sans Rival's enhanced draft and flame
control allows for the brightest white light on any 14'''
Kosmos lamp. And that wonderful draft control means that
even at a very low setting, for example as a night light, the
lamp produced clean, odor free burning. So clean, in
fact, that the chimney seems to stay clean and without a trace
of smudge even after many days of burning. |
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|
At right is a pretty poor
example of a 14''' Kosmos lamp. I purchased this dog
almost 20 years ago. There was a pinhole leak in the
glass font. Fixed that with radiator epoxy. I
fired it up and it smelled horrible. It traveled to a
shelf in a storage room and stayed there for all this time.
A few days ago I dug it out, straightened the collar so the
chimney would be fairly close to vertical, installed a new
wick and tried it again. Still smell horrible from a
too-rich mixture not be able to fully burn in a conventional
Kosmos chimney. I stuck on a Sans Rival chimney and it
burns white with absolutely no aroma. The Sans Rival
chimney burns hot and the secondary combustion chamber burns
up all residual vaporized fuel so there is no aroma when
burning the lamp!
The visible flame shown in
the photo at right is not maximum height. In this test I
only had perhaps an inch and a half of fuel in the font.
The wick had to raise the fuel over 7" and that is too great a
lift to sustain a full burn without an apparent capillary
deficiency. If the font was 3/4th full of fuel it would
sustain a flame above the secondary combustion chamber in the
chimney. But it works! |
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Testing and trials. The Sans Rival chimneys
are AWESOME! What a relief for us 14''' Kosmos users! Thank you!!!
Pretty much all my 14''' Kosmos lamps are going to be wearing them soon.
Peter Brickell, Toronto 8.15.11
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SIDE BY SIDE TEST WITH A STANDARD 14-LINE
CHIMNEY
Test conditions:
LAMP - "Brickell Hybrid" with a modern A. P. Gaudard 14-line
burner on a painted glass font and non-original base
FUEL - 1-K kerosene from a service station (fully taxed fuel,
thus not dyed). Not quite as good as the expensive packaged
1-K at the hardware store, but very close. My standard lamp
fuel for non-problem lamps.
|
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Standard 14''' Chimney |
Sans Rival 14''' Chimney |
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|
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Test A:
San Rival Chimney, burner turned up until it started to smoke
and nudged back to a clean burn.
Light level at 21" away with flat field light meter attachment
and angled to get maximum illumination reading = Exposure
Value
(EV) 3.75 @ 100 ASA/ISO (36 Lux)
Sans Rival chimney at maximum |
|
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Test B:
Standard modern 14-line chimney (perhaps B&P or Gaudard) on
same lamp. One I consider typical of today's Kosmos chimneys
(poor constriction shape). Chimney was about 1/2 inch shorter
overall than the San Rival. Turned up until it smoked
and then turned back until it burned
clean.
Light level at 21" with same meter arrangement and angled for
maximum illumination reading = Exposure Value (EV) 2.88 @
100 ASA/ISO (27.6 Lux)
Standard chimney at maximum |
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EV levels are logarithmic, thus a change of
± 1 EV is twice or half as much light. So, the San Rival put
out 3.75 - 2.88 = 0.87 EV more light = 1.8X as much light as
the standard chimney was capable of. So almost twice!
Disclaimer - none of this was precise science! I just tried to
equalize the conditions and photographic angle for the
comparisons.
Peter Brickell, Toronto August 15, 2011 |
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