I recently finished cleaning up this little dime-store fan. I have a couple of these. They’re cheap and fun, and they run. I polished the blades on this one to a mirror finish. I don’t always do that because it needs maintenance over time. With this one I just decided to do it.
This one also has that green reticulated paint finish that makes me think back to Steelcase desks from the 1950’s (I guess). I polished that up and it shines nicely. I wish I knew a way to replicate that finish, it’s pretty cool.
I lubed the motor and cleaned all of the innards. I use the blue 3-in-1 oil (not the red) for these fans. It’s advice I got, and it’s done fine for me so I’ve never questioned it. It’s SAE 20, the fan calls for SAE 10, but this works for these old motors. I’ll put a link below so you can see it. I don’t think anyone ever oils their vintage fans. 95% of the time, bringing a dead fan back to life is just cleaning, lubricating, and fixing or replacing worn wires.
If you take care of your stuff, it will take care of you.
– My stepdad, and then me
It could use a new vintage-replica cloth cord, but this one’s not in the fire-hazard range that most of the fans I work on are, so I’m leaving it for now.
These are called dime-store fans (or drug store fans) because you could buy them at the dime store. They were cheap and reliable. You see them with lots of different brands on them, but they’re practically all made by the same company, the Bersted Manufacturing Company. I read the story of the fellow who started the company. He was a salesman and started creating small appliances to sell in drug stores. He got acquired by McGraw Electric in 1926, but kept on making his wares. It’s a good old-fashioned American dream story. There’s a bit on Bersted at Jitterbuzz, and more on McGraw on Wikipedia.
I found this picture of an original tag. I wish I could recall where so I could credit properly. I haven’t run across one with the tag on it.
The last one of these fans I bought was hot pink and chrome. Gad-zooks! It’s a subtle flat black now. Do you have one these fans? I’d love to see a picture, especially of the badge. I like to see the different brands, company names, and locations they used for these.
This is my next project – Graybar, oscillator, 10″ 4-blade. I’d like to polish this one up to a mirror finish too, but I have a big 6-blade brass one waiting for me that I also want to get to soon. We’ll see. I’ll post.
Here’s the 3-in-1 oil link I promised – Use the blue stuff on fan motors.