B C wooden lampholder adaptor

[Billy BeanParticipant @billybean67480]

Just out of interest,

I found this under the floorboards of a house I was rewiring as an apprentice more than 50 years ago.

It is the only one I have ever seen.

Any other members know of this type please ?

The thread is 3/4 by 16 tpi

BB

 

 

Edited By Billy Bean on 25/01/2018 19:06:53

Edited By Billy Bean on 25/01/2018 19:11:20

[Billy BeanParticipant @billybean67480]

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

It looks like one of many adapters that were one used to allow devices other than light bulbs to be connected to a light bulb socket (when that was the only electric power in the house/room). I used to use one for a soldering iron. It was plastic though, not wood.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Remember the 5 amp plugs you could unscrew in place and that had two split pins as contacts. Lethal!

Neil

Edit: I found it on eBay…

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/01/2018 19:26:39

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Looks like lignin vitae.

Does it have contacts on the other end of the screwed off bayonet part? What’s at the other end of the larger part?
I recall snuggling under an electric blanket at my nans plugged into an adaptor in the light bulb socket. And nan always used the same thing for running the iron.

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 25/01/2018 19:24:23:

Remember the 5 amp plugs you could unscrew in place and that had two split pins as contacts. Lethal!

Not those. But I do recall you could once buy flat 3-pin plug+socket pairs to extend power cords. Sometimes the bare pinned plug got connected to the live end. People died.

[Billy BeanParticipant @billybean67480]

Neil – lethal indeed. Not one to let H & S know about.

Tractor man – lignin vitae looks good, thanks for that.

It is basically a wooden version of the bakelite type still around. The screw on top end has a 0.25 inch hole for the flex and the other end has two brass oval contacts to match the pins in the lampholder.

[Billy BeanParticipant @billybean67480]

Alan – is this the type you are thinking about?

Still available under the DURAPLUG name – made of rubber.

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

One of my previous houses only had a 5 amp plug socket running off the downstairs lighting circuit. That was all the power circuit we had. Still had to go upstairs with a torch and light the gas mantles. We are proper posh now in our present house (built in 1860) we have real 13 amp power all over the place !

[Martin 100Participant @martin100]

Maybe as late as the 1950's in some areas the electricity for lighting was supplied separately possibly unmetered and just at a flat rate compared to a supply suitable for pluggable appliances hence why these adaptors appeared. I saw one used with a low wattage iron (for clothes) as late as the mid 1970's even when single rate metering became the norm. Clearly there is no means of earth provision!

Mains DC to the home at around 200v was still in existence until about 1960 or even a bit later in some urban areas using steam powered generators that had been in service from the 1920's

I knew someone many years ago, who as an electrical apprentice in Hull with the Yorkshire Electricity Board, went round doing domestic mains conversions from DC to AC by fitting induction disc metering around 1960 ish.

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

Anyone remember when the man came round in his van on a Friday and swapped over your glass accumulators so you had a fresh set for the weekends radio programs?

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

Posted by Billy Bean on 25/01/2018 19:57:58:

Alan – is this the type you are thinking about?

Still available under the DURAPLUG name – made of rubber.

Basically, yes. I thougt all these devices were long gone *as consumer parts* (assembled cables only connect one way round). It seems bayonet/lightbulb plugs are also readily available. Anybody know how good schools are at teaching the basics of not killing yourself with mains electricity?

[Dave DanielsParticipant @davedaniels93256]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 25/01/2018 19:24:23:

Remember the 5 amp plugs you could unscrew in place and that had two split pins as contacts. Lethal!

Neil

Edit: I found it on eBay…

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/01/2018 19:26:39

Or those cute D&S plugs whose fuses came unscrewed and somewhat inconveniently were left sticking out of the socket with the entire National Grid waiting to ambush anyone daft enough to pull 'em out ….

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets:_British_and_related_types#Counterfeits_and_non-standard_plugs

D.

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Schools in our area have given up on teaching how to wire a plug cos of the elfin safety brigade reckons it encourages the little dahlings to fiddle with electricity and kill themselves I remember making up 20 boards with wrongly fitted plugs for demonstration purposes and it felt completely WRONG to fit a green or blue wire to the fuse, never mind leaving hairy terminals and bad flex grips

[MeunierParticipant @meunier]

Posted by Oldiron on 25/01/2018 20:09:23:

Anyone remember when the man came round in his van on a Friday and swapped over your glass accumulators so you had a fresh set for the weekends radio programs?

Home delivery ? !!! As a 6 or 7yr old youngster in Liverpool I had to carry my nan's 2accumulators to the chemists for recharging and returning with the two pre-charged exchange units. At least they had bored wooden sleeves on the wire handles so one could 'swing' them.
DaveD

Edited By Meunier on 25/01/2018 20:51:07

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

They used to put twin outlet into the light socket to run additional things like the iron when houses had few sockets when they moved from gas lighting. My mother used to take the accumulator for the radio round to what in my early years became a aircraft model shop run by the two sons of the original owner. I used to marvel at their large, to me, radio controlled planes with Kraft control gear.

[HacksawParticipant @hacksaw]

hey , they really are split pins ! One has screw terminals ,fair enough .. the other holds the wire ends by tightening the cap !

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Hacksaw on 25/01/2018 21:39:37:

hey , they really are split pins ! One has screw terminals ,fair enough .. the other holds the wire ends by tightening the cap !

That bottom plug brought back memories!

I think they were made by CLIX and when I worked in the early 60s as a radio and TV service engineer we had a row of 2 pin socket along the front of the bench into which we plugged the thing we were repairing. We did not have luxuries such as isolation transformers but a neon screwdriver was always in hand so ensuring the chassis was on the neutral side was second nature.

The workshop manager was a stickler for tidiness and insisted that at the end of the day all the plugs were accounted for by being put into the bench sockets so we could end up with a row of plugs but with nothing connected. On more than one occasion a plug would be deliberately left on the bench next to an empty socket,,,, On spotting this at the end of the the manager would put the plug in, only to be greeted by a flash and a bang!

Fuse wire, or more likely multicore solder had been installed between the split pin, nobody ever admitted it though.

Ian P

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

The factory I worked in used to have a wide variety of plugs and sockets. Single phase outlets were of a few types, the standard 13A were for general use but for other production equipment the Dorman Smith with a fused live pin that simply unscrewed to change the fuse. One that made you look twice was the normal 13A plug that had the pins at 90deg to the normal pattern. With two types of 3phase supply in the plant more types were required apart from the normal 415v supply a low voltage 200hz supply for portable tools was generated on site and widely distributed. The tool supply allowed a powerful tool to be built in a smaller frame than a single phase tool and with 110v Center tapped to earth it was safer for the operator. Some of the really old plug tops were wood and red fibre. I think some of the reasons for the obscure plugs was to stop them being liberated and also to stop people plugging their radios and kettles into sockets used for production systems. The hi-cycle power tools did not get stolen either!

Mike

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

The 3/4"x16 thread was the standard conduit thread before metrification to M20x1.5

Emgee

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Two pin plugs – check, two pin sockets – taken out in the '60's but as I sit I can still see the witness of where they were on the skirting despite 50 years of paint layers. bayonet to two pin socket – check. 5A socket off lighting circuit upstairs and down – check, still in use. It really puzzled me as a kid trying to work out which fuse they were on as it never occurred to me a socket would be on the lighting circuit.
Can I add the necessary Y bayonet splitters to enable the extra loads to be added to the ceiling pendant. At school we daisy chained power to about 13 desk lamps and my oldest soldering iron still has a bayonet plug from then.

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

Hi Billy,

That's a really nice bit of lignum vitae turning which I'm pretty sure would have been hand turned from one piece of LV by a kindred spirit of ours – it's not a production item IMHO. Even the heartwood sapwood markings seem to be matching on the two halves.

I am particularly impressed that they added the cable strain relief holes.

You can betcha it'd been intended to be used with cotton covered twisted cable.

Jon

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

Hi all, before H&S took over the world I taught my daughter basic electrical stuff at around the age of 12, wiring 2 & 3 pin plugs, using socket tester etc, imagine my astonishment when she was regularly asked by male teachers in an all girl school to wire a plug for them!

However, during an office relocation at the firm where I worked, the foreman of the electrical department came upon an office worker fitting a 3 pin plug to a paper shredder, the logic being that the cable had to pass through a hole in the desk top too small to accomodate the plug, said foreman then gently took it from him & cut the first 8 inches off the cable, man says he needs to use the shredder & will report this matter to his office manager, foreman retorts "knock yourself out, we will see what he has to say when i show him that you wired the earth wire to the live pin of the plug,making the machine live at mains voltage" Boom Boom.

Bob

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Hacksaw on 25/01/2018 21:39:37:

hey , they really are split pins ! One has screw terminals ,fair enough .. the other holds the wire ends by tightening the cap !

As a kid I sold a few of those in my Dad's shop

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I found a few of those wooden BC adaptors on google images. They turn up on eBay.

Here's a selection of wooden plugs from South Africa:

http://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/SouthAfrica2.html

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