Christopher Tidy wrote:

Hi all,

Just got back from spending a few days on holiday in Berlin. I stayed
at a cheap-but-nice place which used to be a telephone factory (take a
look at www.diefabrik.com if you're thinking of going to Berlin - you
guys would probably like the place). Anyway I digress a little, but
the place was fitted out using many Cold War era lamps, desks and
fixtures which I thought looked really cool.

Then one night I went for a walk and noticed a huge complex of
derelict buildings, probably 50 acres or so. It turned out to be an
old East German railway rolling stock maintenance depot. When the wall
came down they had two depots within a couple of miles of each other,
so they closed one, removed all the gear and abandoned it. Nowadays it
has been pretty comprehensively trashed and, apart from the odd sign
warning of "unfallgefahr", you can wander around the place pretty
freely. Some squatters have even set up an nightclub on the site.
Given my love of old junk and also a fascination for derelict
buildings, I couldn't resist a look. Sadly I didn't have a camera with
me, but brought back a couple of things from among the piles of waste
on the site:

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/stuff1.jpg

Obviously there are a pair of Bourdon pressure gauges (apparently
these look pretty weird under an x-ray scanner!) and one of those Cold
War era lamps I was talking about. Unfortunately the lamp glass is
broken, but I thought I'd pick it up anyway and try to find a
replacement. It looks like the glass has been sprayed red on the
inside, probably so that it could be used as some kind of signalling
lamp. Has anyone seen a lamp like this before? It's marked with a logo
made from the letters "EOW" and also carries the letters "Ex" and
"Sch", both inside circles. The whole thing is very heavy and the cage
isn't made from wire, it's round bar! I also need a weird triangular
spanner to open the case. That blast cabinet I was talking to Harold
about would be useful too! Here are a few more pictures:

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/lamp1.jpg
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/lamp2.jpg
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/lamp3.jpg
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/lamp4.jpg

Anyone got any thoughts about where to find a new glass dome, or how
to make one? Interesting challenge...

Sorry for the long post!

Best wishes,

Chris

I have seen lamps that looked like that on Navy ships. They were used as
"night lights" and the
red color was so as to not destroy your night vision. You could take a
break from watch duty
and return and still have the night vision.

Of course anything for the Navy was sturdy.
Try marine suppliers for replacements.

Bill k7NOM