Improved Eugeos center draft burner

Improved Eugeos center draft lamp and burner

Eugeos center draft lamp
The centre draft version of the improved Eugeos lamp was made in Germany and as near as I can determine never imported into North America.

Photo courtesy of Bill Courter

This is a different kind of web page from the others. For it primarily describes a rare German manufactured center draft burner from the 1920's that as near as I can determine was never imported into North America. The burner was developed by Ehrich & Graetz in Germany for the lamp illustrated on the left. So far I have been unable to find any evidence that either this lamp or this centre draft burner were ever sold within North America. Yet somehow the burner described here ended up in Northern California in an antique dealer's miscellaneous lamp parts box in the 1990s. So it is quite possible that an unknown person imported burners and offered them for sale in the US prior to WWI.

The basic Eugeos burner design came in both side and centre draft designs and has undergone a lot of modifications during its approximately 15 year manufacturing life. Side draft versions of this burner design were imported into North America and sold as stand alone burner upgrades and on American manufactured lamps.

The gallery and burner basket on my burner is slightly different than the one on the lamp. I suspect that this lamp and burner is an earlier version of the Eugeos center draft and that my burner is the newer improved version of the burner.

The flame spreader is missing from this lamp and from my burner so I do not know what it looks like or if it was the same between the two versions.

The centre draft improved Eugeos Lamp:

Eugeos center draft lamp font
Photo courtesy of Bill Courter

Eugeos label on lamp bowl
Photo courtesy of Bill Courter

Eugeos filler cap
Filler cap
Photo courtesy of Bill Courter

The Centre draft improved Eugeos burner

Improved Eugeos burner side view
The outside thread diameter is 1.9 inches which is different from any of the standard American lamp burner thread sizes.

Raised Eugeos burner basket
The key at the top side of the burner basket raises and lowers the gallery so that the lamp can be lit without removing the gallery and possibly damaging the fragile mantle.

top view of Eugeos burner basket
Top view of the centre draft version of the improved Eugeos burner basket

In this top view of the centre draft version of the improved Eugeos burner basket you can see the wick holder inside the outer wick tube. The spiked protrusions at the top of the wick holder anchor the wick between the holder and the inner wick tube.

The gallery takes a chimney with a 2-5/8 inch diameter base

The gallery of the improved Eugeos centre draft burner is composed of 4 parts:

1. the outer skirt containing the clips that hold onto the chimney

2. The flattened oval tube that holds the mantle mounting wire which is soldered to the gallery base

3. the gallery base with its bottom mounting flange and inward facing flange at the top centre.

4. A piece that sits under the centre top of the gallery that directs the airflow coming from outside the burner basket. You can think of it as shaped like a tiny brass pie plate where someone had cut out the bottom area with pinking shears leaving a series of small triangular cuts. These fit against the outer wick tube creating a circle of small triangular holes. The sides of the pie plate is a densely packed with a diagonal row of slots that directs air in towards the outer wick tube above the circle of triangular holes. The top of the pie plate is an outward facing flange (like a normal metal pie plate). When the top gallery inward flange is shaped the flange clamps the top flat edge of the pie plate to the bottom of the gallery inward facing flange.

Underside of Eugeos gallery
Teeth at bottom of inner gallery part sit against the outer wick tube to create a circle of triangular shaped air flow holes.

Slots inside of Eugeos center draft burner
The row of diagonal slots at the top of the inner gallery part sit under the inward shaped flange at the top of the gallery base and above the circle of triangular shaped holes.

Improved Eugeos wick holder
The top of the straight rack gear on the wick holder has a stop to prevent the wick holder from being accidentally adjusted out from the gear on the burner basket.

Wick for the center draft version of the improved Eugeos burner

Purple ink badly faded I can make out 20" then unknown. Appears to take a lamp base with 1" dia centre draft tube