Planetfurry BBS

[tobi3B]

Here you can see the oldes working bulb in historie yia life cam.

http://www.centennialbulb.org/cam.htm

[South_Munjoy]

Those old bulbs were as the article says, essentially hand made bulbs with carbon filaments. --I believe that Edison's first bulb used a filament made from bamboo charcoal.

Essentially you're looking at a handmade item that was made by craftsmen that most likely had quite a few years of knowlege and training invested in making their product. Contrast that with the product cranked out on automated assembly lines in China today. --The only only hermetically sealed vaccuum devices made in the US, or for that matter North America today are very high end radio transmitter tubes. We haven't made the consumer grade stuff here in many years.

If you want to make one similar, This Video will give you some ideas as to some of the basic processes used, though what the guy is making in the video is of more interest to Radio geeks, and perhaps musicians, as what he is making is a bit more involved than simple lightbulbs.