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I found this vornado 16pb1 pedestal on my local offer up, it only runs on one speed right now and I can not get the pedestal to raise , other then that and some rust on the base , it is in decent condition

Thanks to Louis and his generosity, I now have a big Verity's. I have a couple of the little guys, but this is my first large orbit fan. I ended up restoring it because it appeared to me to have been restored at some point. It was in pretty good condition aside from the paint and covered in a thick layer of deposits of some kind. Under the crust, the chrome looks nearly new, so nothing has bee rechromed, included the screws. The rubber feet and grommets were nice enough to re-use after soaking in AFT overnight to soften them. A note of caution for anyone going to restore one of these. The paint is near indestructible and withstood soaking in paint remover and my torch. Only soaking in lacquer thinner got it soft enough to remove with a wire wheel. That was a whole day stripping paint. I manage to nail the color with powder coat from Prismatic Powders, also. The speed label I made on my computer. It runs rather slow, I think, even though there is no drag on the parts, it ohms out OK and draws about 10% over the rated wattage. I think it's down to 50 vs 60 cycles. No worries, though, as 16 inch fans typically run too fast to use in my place. So after it warmed up to a crisp 63 degrees this morning, I made a short video of it. Cheers, Bill

In theory these towers could have second layer of wraps separated by the insulating fiber mounted to side edges allowing 4 speeds. Something worth mentioning is if resistance wire makes contact with adjacent wire the only thing that happens is resistance is lost over the length that current would have traveled. After determining resistance and lenth needed I unwind the new coiled wire onto a 2” pvc pipe with end taped. A center reference point is nice. For example If using 10’ will make slight bend in wire at 5’.. As I unwind the cut wire from pvc pipe to choke the half way reference mark gives a reference point as to if my wraps will all fit on choke.

The advantage of Kanthanl seems misunderstood. It is not about heat resistance or durability but rather the higher ohm resistance per foot vs nichrome. This is important because most times the available area to hold resistance wire is limited. For example if you have original 28 awg nichrome and 42 ohms then you have around 10’ of wire. To increase the resistance you can drop to 30 awg nichrome around 6.6 ohm and get 66 ohms over same 10’ 28 awg Kantal is 5.2 ohms vs Nichrome 4.2 ohm (5.2-4.2/4.2) 25% more 30 awg Kanthal is 8.3 ohms vs Nichrome 6.6 ohms (8.3-6.6/6.6) 25% more So when rewinding the obstacle at hand is where to squeeze in extra length for greater ohms. You can drop a gauge with greater ohms, swap for Kanthal or do both. Using same 10’ of available wrapped area: 28 awg nichrome is 42 ohms 28 awg Kanhal is 52 ohms 30 awg nichrome is 66 ohms 30 awg Kanthal is 83 ohms. Above shows Kantahl advantage when limited on working area. First you should determine how many resistance ohms you need and then figure out how to get there with the same limited space.

Kanthal and Nichrome contain different metals/alloys. Kanthal does have its advantages over Nichrome for longevity especially for high temp heating purposes such as toasters, industrial heaters, kilns, vaping, etc. Kanthal has a slight edge regarding melting point over Nichrome, but both can compete neck and neck up to roughly 2400-2500 degrees Fahrenheit. As far as current resistance applications on small fan motors I doubt the coils get red hot to make toast, so is wire longevity really going to be an issue? The fan is not running 24/7 like the good ole days. So, is the use of Kanthal as opposed to Nichrome really going to be an issue? 🙂 This Nichrome spool I have pictured is either 60% or 80% Nickle. I measured 25 ohms resistance at roughly 27 inches.

I need to sharpen the blade's edge a bit on the four blade version.

My 16" also runs slow or at least slower than other fans. 20220827_192455.mp4

Also, no pens....

Actually, Russ, that is exactly what I'm doing. I have determined that I need 50 ohms of resistance in total to give me the second speed that I want. Kanthal resistance wire of a certain gauge provides 14.3 ohms of resistance per foot of wire so I will need about 3.5 feet of this wire to give me the resistance I want. I removed the nichrome wire that was on the tower. There were 6.5 feet of nichrome which provided 25 ohms of resistance. I have ordered the Kanthal wire (recommended to me by Carlton Ward) and I expect to have that early next week. It was very inexpensive - $13 for 100 feet including shipping. In the meantime, I painted on some sodium silicate to stabilize the asbestos on the tower and to provide additional heat insultation from the Kanthal wire. I have had good luck with sodium silicate which can easily withstand high heat. So there you have it. I will attempt to do this rewind myself and report back on my results. Thank you, Russ.

Beautifull work Bill and a great job on the video!👍👍 I have the same fan as you do but there are slight differences . Mine is in brass as yours is in nickel. Mine is 60 cycles, 220vac, yours is 50 cycles , 230/250vac. Mine is stamped V1, yours V12. Mine is supposed to run at 1300rpm, yours 1200rpm. Both were made at the same plant. Louis also helped me out with parts and you had made a brass strut for it.

I had a little time on my hands and decided to put some parts together. My neighbor wanted to see the process of how I come up with these things, so I made consecutive videos of the work in progress and put them together from start to finish. I left out the drudgery of cutting, bending, soldering, drilling and tapping chores. I've moved on to restoring a 16 inch Verity's Orbital next. Cheers, Bill

The 95 introduction C. F. 1 ceiling fan would be a prize find. Not only is it the last of the deceased Alexander Meston's single-phase brushed motor concept, at 133 cycles it would have had a tough time surviving out there in the world evolving to 60 cycles. Charles Meston was for most part a pencil pusher. Alexander Meston was deceased spring of 93. Just what Edwin Pillsbury and Fred Briner Emerson involvement contributed to Emerson induction motor engineering after Alexander's death up to 97........??