Doug DeHaven Embarking on the restoration journey of a 1921 Clayton and Lambert torch was like stepping into a portal to the past. The torch, weathered and worn, whispered stories of a bygone era. Intrigued by its history, I meticulously dismantled every piece, unveiling its inner workings like a treasure hunter uncovering ancient relics. With tender care, I polished away the decades of grime, revealing the lustrous metal beneath. Clayton and Lambert, a company founded in 1840, pioneered the manufacturing of torches and soldering irons, becoming synonymous with quality craftsmanship. As I pieced the torch back together, I felt a profound connection to the artisans of yesteryears, honoring their legacy by resurrecting this piece of history to its former glory.
As much as I would love to say this was the point of picking up this tourch for the collection, but to be honest, I have been looking for the little hook on top to replace the missing on on my Otto Bernz torch I restored recently. So I picked this up cheap to take the hook, but it did not fit my Bernz torch for as I came to learn this was not a BErnz, it was a C&L! So that meant I just had to restore this one to fit my soldering iron ha! Follow along on my journy through the restoration.
Here are some before shots of how I picked it up.
Next step was to get it alll appart and into the blaster, to get down to bare metal.
Now to spend many hours on the wire wheel and buffer, to get everything to polish up to a shine again!
While blasting it, I found the C&L logo on the bottom of the metal pre heat tray, so this lead me to learing the make of it! I set out to find a logo online, vectorize it, and cut some vinyl to make replacement logos.
Made from 2 colors cut, and layered to make the logo. NOTE: This is their new logo, and too modern for this torch, the old one looks more like a crown. But I like the look of this one more for this style body.
Here is a video of it complete.
And some finished shots!
