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Other Vintage Household Electrical or Electromechanical Items For discussions about other vintage (over 25 years old) electrical and electromechanical household items. See the sticky thread for details. |
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#1 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Southam, Warwickshire
Posts: 98
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Doing a bit of spring cleaning I found this at the back of a cupboard. I think I last used it in the late 80s and don't plan using it again but it's a nice curiosity.
It's basically a miniature kettle element which you lower into the drink to heat it. The glass and its plastic holder are original, I think. The plastic is shrinking and splitting in places - across the base and through the line of the handle. The wire loop alongside the element is so that you can suspend an egg in water to boil it, or so I was told at the time. "Switch off before removing from liquid." ![]() Mitch |
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#2 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,966
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Similar things were quite common at one time. A great aunt of mine always used to take one on holiday so that she could make a cup of tea. 12V ones are still made for camping, but I'm not sure the mains ones can be legally sold now.
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#3 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Leominster, Herefordshire, UK.
Posts: 16,536
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I've got one somewhere that's just a small kettle element with the coiled bit at the bottom of the two straight bits. At the top is a plastic handle a bit like the cover of an inline connector with a hooked bit on the side so you can hang the whole thing on the side of your mug.
Something like the picture, in fact, except that it runs on 220V not 12V!
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#4 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, UK.
Posts: 3,051
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I'm told (though I've never seen one) that there was a device in the '20s or thereabouts which simply consisted of a pair bare electrodes connected to the mains, and which was lowered into a vessel of water to heat it
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#5 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: North London, UK.
Posts: 6,168
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That's called an electrode boiler. Still widely used industrially.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrode_boiler |
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#6 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,901
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Some electric shower units look nastily like they run the water through a grounded or plastic can with a bare coiled bit of resistance wire in it 240V 30 or 45A fused!
David
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