Posted 12 years ago
AZVintageL…
(15 items)
This heavy light is considered Explosion Proof, meaning it protected the bulb and electrical connections from the outside environment, so that a spark would not cause an explosion.
It was found in hazardous environments such as munition plants, chemical plants, or fuel processing plants.
The heavy glass globe is nearly a 1/4 in. thick and housing is made of heavy cast aluminum. Benjamin Electric was a major manufactur of industrial lighting back in the early days.
The crenallation design at the top (its coolest feature), is used to tighten the head portion to the housing, making it airt tight. Some of theses lights also had a porcelain enamel shade. I'll post pics of one soon....
Cool! I own a Benjamin industrial lamp too. I live in Brazil and I wonder how it ended up here. I will post pictures of it soon, as I am still removing the awful blue paint someone painted it...they painted over the enamel and aluminum parts. The enamel cleaned up easily but the aluminum is really hard to clean. I left it submerged in thinner for days, tried paint strip formulas...nothing seemed to work. I then used steel wool with thinner and the paint is slowly peeling off. I hope it end up as beautiful as yours.