Featured Some weather vanes

More items from my parent house, brought 6 weather vanes home to clean up. Just wash the dust off, not scrape or wire brush! LOL! I know better than that! The cow, rooster and horse are kinda 3D.

 

Delightful, Dean - I love them all!

 

Then there's one with a glass panel and 2 all metal.

 

The horse is in the worst condition as it will completely come off. Only way to fix it, as far as I can tell, is to braze it back on and then age the repair to match.

 

Can't see how the vane in the second set of pix could catch enough wind to turn it. Something missing?

 

They're all cute, but I don't see how any of them get attached to a pole. How long are they?

 

May be worth more unrestored?

 

Looks like the rod fit in up through the bottom of the center circle(s).

 

The ring in the middle is where the rod would go through.

 

Haven't "unearthed" any red ones yet, but so far have blue and white.

 

Blue one definitely looks like an insulator. Don't know if some would have had metal on them. Now to Google 'weather vane insulators'.

 

Just spotted this on the one on the right. Blitzen means lightning, as in Donder & Blitzen:

 

I didn't realize that the center circle had an opening in the vertical direction.

 

Nice, Dean! To Bronwen's point, do the two wire ones have any visual clues as to whether there was something mounted, either inside, or on top of them at the 'tail feathers' end?

 

Definitely metal caps on some, I guess they act as a bushing. But I've seen them, and not just these, just about as far back as I can remember. Even the picture I Need Help posted earlier in the thread shows the metal caps.

 

I believe the "balls" on the lightening rods were for decoration only as the one piece rod goes through them, the rods aren't 2 pieces. so there's no way they could act as an insulator (40 years as a union electrician has taught me at least that much!). Maybe they were an indicator, because I'm sure if lightning hit the rod, the globe would burst and be gone. I've actually demoed some old lightning rods, as well as installed the newer high tech lightening systems, and they all have a cable going down and attaching to a ground rod, in the ground.

 

Only one wire one, 2 pics just showing each side of the same one. There are no indications of anything being in the middle of the tail, no slots or grooves, or studs or posts, nothing. Guess you just hoped is swung freely and relied on the wind to push on the front part? Sorry, no idea.