Restoration of 120 Year Old Fire Extinguisher with Testing
Odd Tinkering Odd Tinkering
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 Published On Mar 4, 2023

I restore this fire extinguisher from 1900 and test it. The fire extinguisher has lots of damage, it's oxidized, the bottle on the inside is broken, the hose is unusable and there are some dents. I've wanted to have one of these for a long time because the mechanism they use is so interesting. Also they look really nice. These type of extinquishers are called soda acid extinquishers. They use water that has soda in it and a small bottle of acid. When the extiguisher is flipped upside down, the soda and acid mix generating CO2 that will cause pressure to build in the extinguisher and that forces the water out.

The hose and the lid were jammed pretty tightly because of years of oxidation. I used some oil to loosen them and on the lid I also had to use heat and secure the body of the extinquisher to my wise to I can apply enough force to open it. the extinquisher was quite unpractical shape for holding it in place during the operation so I used some straps and rubber mats to keep it in place.

Next I removed most of the oxidation with salt and lemon. I figured that would be relatively gentle way of cleaning it so I have less work to do when I need to polish it. Next I removed paint from the label with paint remover. I proceeded to hammer the dents to fix them. It's good to remember that after repairing the dents the chamber might not hold all the pressure it used to anymore (that also applies to a dented chamber).

The bottle holder on the lid was damaged. I assume years of corrosion from the acid in the bottle broke it and the bottle had broken too. Only lead cap was left. I decided to find similar sized old looking bottle for which I recreated the bottle holder. I made a simple wire bending tool and bent 4mm brass wire to create the bottle holder. I also made a new gasket for the top.

Next I started working on the hose. I thought it looked pretty cool and since it was unusable and I'd have to destroy a lot of it just to get the original nozzle, I decided to make my own with a lathe from brass. I might frame the old hose and put it on my wall next to the extinguisher. The nozzle was then connected to a new hose that's for high pressure. After all the extinquisher is rated for 350 lb and some of these similar extinquishers have ratings for up to 500 lb. So also the hose should be able to take high pressure.

Finally polished the extinquisher with metal polish. I also used a paint pen to paint the labels. That was a little messy but looked really good after I cleaned it up.

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#restoration
#repair
#antique
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