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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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Old 29th Jun 2018, 7:09 am   #21
n_r_muir
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Hi

From all of the sound technical advice given on this forum I personally would follow the original advice of "don't plug it in" and "polish it and put it on a shelf".

Ross
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 8:32 am   #22
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

If it were mine, I think I'd power it up just once, taking appropriate precautions, just for the experience. It's not really practical for everyday use, though, with the need for some sort of voltage dropper, avoiding touching the connectors, a hard-wired earth, and the time it will take to boil!
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 8:55 am   #23
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Quote:
Originally Posted by dseymo1 View Post
If it were mine, I think I'd power it up just once...
Even I would probably have to agree, in spite of the way that when anything here gets replaced it's usually with something older or more primitive.

It wouldn't be a great hardship to me to exchange for another week or two the household kettle (a "commercial" 2 litre Burco, still in production) for one of the resident Premier kettles, which are probably only five or ten years younger than the one in question. The five or ten years make quite a difference in this instance, and the only real downside with using the old kettles here is their prolonged boiling time. That is a significant disadvantage, though, when the Premiers are rated at something around 600 watts and the Burco takes 2300.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 9:44 am   #24
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

I admire your curiosity with this vintage kettle and your sense in asking for advice on this Forum but strongly recommend you do not continue with your experiments. Very dangerous procedures. The clamped elements in your example are prone to leakage.

Clean it up and make a nice display maybe adding a few more...

I have a mini collection of kettles, [but don't tell my nurse] a few of them in SAFE working order with their correct connectors. I usually bring one out when I am expecting visitors and I suspect they think to their horror that I use the example full time. I don't!

TAKE GREAT CARE!

Regards, John.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 3:09 pm   #25
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Nice collection there John I have the Swan (third across first row in your pic) as my everyday kettlem mine is from 1946 I beleve. I think I would be hesitant using anything significantly older than that though. The Swan has a proper bakalite connector and proper earth and can pass a P.A.T test with ease.

OP test it by all means then polish it and put it up on display.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 3:43 pm   #26
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

I have the same Swan kettle, but it lacks a lead, as I threw it away in my less enlightened days.

The reason I stopped using it was that it took a lot of water to cover the element and took a long tine to boil.
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Old 29th Jun 2018, 5:58 pm   #27
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Many of these vintage kettles have quite a low loading, usually around 1KW and rarely more than 1.5KW and were originally fitted with a BC lamp adaptor. Honest! J.
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 2:25 am   #28
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

I'd risk powering it up directly on mains until it boils, once, without an earth, and without touching it, just for the fun of it.
The slight risk of the element failing spectacularly adds to the fun and wouldn't really detract from its value as a display item.
For the price of a custom-made isolation transformer with a 200-V secondary or even a suitably rated transformer with a 40-V winding, one could buy a good assortment of attractive and useable safer vintage and new kettles.
(Not to mention some nice electric coffee percolators and electric samovars!)
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Old 30th Jun 2018, 10:17 am   #29
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

A simpler way of powering this kettle in RELATIVE safety would be to use a 110 volt isolating transformer as used for power tools and portable lighting on construction sites.

The reduced voltage will avoid overstressing anything, and the maximum voltage to earth is only 55 volts and less likely to be dangerous.

It will take even longer to boil, but that might not be an issue for limited use.

110 volt transformers are available on ebay and elsewhere. 1KVA is a common size and ample for this application.
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Old 3rd Jul 2018, 9:21 am   #30
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Just as an aside, it's interesting to note that non-immersion elements for electric kettles are back with a vengeance! It won't be long before we're being told 'don't use the old-fashioned ones with the element in the water', followed ten years later by gasps of utter astonishment that anyone could even think of putting 'an electric heater under water'.
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Old 3rd Jul 2018, 11:03 am   #31
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

...I've noted how on one occasion the modern non-immersion type are quite capable of spitting molten globs of copper out through the base when they fail!
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Old 4th Jul 2018, 8:19 pm   #32
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Default Re: Premier Kettle

Yes and the Burco wash boilers! I used to repair many of these with quite a number of contact elements bolted under the bottom.

They used to fail one at a time until the customer began to realize it was taking at least 2 hours to get the water hot.

I remember a really filthy example that was brought it for service. It stank and turned out to be the local butchers boiling tub for his cooked ham......John.
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