Wagner Antique Fan Assembly

1:11 pm Restoration

My Wagner fan restoration has progressed well (see previous posts). Recently I finished the final assembly. I took the entire fan apart and cleaned every part. Many of the parts needed to be repainted, and the fan blade needed to be stripped of the paint and polished.

Here are all the pieces laid out. Please click on the photo for detailed Flickr annotations. brittnybadger has taken some really great photos of household appliances in similar “poses.” I wish my photo was as good as one of hers.
Wagner Fan in Pieces

The oscillator gearbox looks really interesting. Here it is before I added gearbox grease. It takes the high speed rotation of the fan motor and slows it down using two worm gears, and then drives the crank which rotates the fan from side to side.
Wagner Fan - Open Gearbox

There is still some work left to be done. The fan blade is made of steel which was copper plated before being painted. Time has not been kind to the plating. When I stripped the paint, I could see green corrosion and pitting that ruined the plating, so I had little choice but to polish off the rest of the copper plating. I have not yet decided whether to leave the blade steel or to get it copper plated again. Regardless of that I like the look of an unpainted blade.

The headwire which connects the fan motor to the base and the switch also needs to be replaced. The rubber insulation underneath the cloth has gotten brittle and cracked. Similarly, the line cord is not original and I need to do some more research to find out what an original line cord looks like.

Finally, I need to make some safety upgrades. I have already added a fuse in the base that will prevent shorts in the motor windings from causing a fire. I still need to add a grounding wire since the case is metal and could shock people if one of the motor windings touches it.

One Response
  1. Paul :

    Date: June 6, 2017 @ 4:20 am

    I had first come to your blog because I was building the coin cell nixie power supply. I came here again after I bought an antique Wagner fan! In my case it is a 62601, which apart from being very dirty and having very dangerous wiring, was in working order! I stripped it and cleaned it, but I need to strip the paint off and repaint it (and re-wire it).

Leave a Comment

Your comment

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.