Gaslight - what colour

[pritch]

What colour is gaslight? Any ideas? Specifically, if anyone can suggest a gel colour, that would be splendid.

 

I notice Rosco do 'gaslight green', but this seems slightly counter-intuitive to me - perhaps I'm wrong.

[gareth]

Gaslight is a very pale greeny-white.

[Ekij]

Of course what Gel you need to use is also affected by the colour temp of the lamp behind it.

 

More important than the colour of the gas lamp is the fact that gas lamps tend to flicker and pulse a little (but only a little, not as much as a fire does). While people might not know what colour they should be they will (subconsciously) know that a perfectly stable light isn't quite right.

[pritch]

Gaslight is a very pale greeny-white.

 

Well, you learn something new every day. For some reason it just seemed to me that it should have been more of a yellowish.

 

More important than the colour of the gas lamp is the fact that gas lamps tend to flicker and pulse a little (but only a little, not as much as a fire does). While people might not know what colour they should be they will (subconsciously) know that a perfectly stable light isn't quite right.

 

Sounds like I've found a use for that knackered dimmer channel that we've not managed to sort out, then.

[boatman]

Stangely enough Rosco #388 is called "Gaslight Green" and Lee #138 is pretty close. I used L138 last year in a three of these for the street scenes in Jack The Ripper and it was very effective.

[Guest lightnix]

Gaslight is a very pale greeny-white.

Yes, it is. If you want to see it for yourself, take a walk through Hyde Park after dark - the cycle path on the Park Lane side (for starters) has genuine gas lamps still in operation, as does the outside of Buckingham Palace and some other streets around the SW1 area.

[Simon Lewis]

Gaslight is a very pale greeny-white.

 

Interesting.. Was this because of contaminants in coal gas or because of the rare earth oxides used for mantles?

[Wuddy]

The colour of gas light depends upon which era you are working in.

 

The gas mantle which produces the greeny-white light previous mentioned was not invented until 1885.

 

Prior to the gas mantle gas lights were just an open flame - commonly called fish-tail, bats-wing, -spur,-comb due to the shape of the gas falme.

 

These open flame gas lights burnt with an orange/yellow and smokey/sooty flame due to the general poor quality of the coal gas. In some street lights the open flame was directed onto a piece of soap stone which gave a marginally better light than just the open flame.

 

Gas mantles were not used in London street lights until 1895 which is after the era of Jack the Ripper 1888-1891.

[Guest lightnix]

Prior to the gas mantle gas lights were just an open flame - commonly called fish-tail, bats-wing, -spur,-comb due to the shape of the gas falme.

Presumably that would have been a kind of golden yellow, then - like a Bunsen burner with the hole closed?

[pritch]

Cheers everyone; we're talking about 1860s, indoor. So maybe we are looking more yellowy? Perhaps something like Dirty White?

[Wuddy]

Prior to the gas mantle gas lights were just an open flame - commonly called fish-tail, bats-wing, -spur,-comb due to the shape of the gas falme.

Presumably that would have been a kind of golden yellow, then - like a Bunsen burner with the hole closed?

 

 

Yes. similar. The fish-tail burners had a iron or porcelain jet with a row of two/four small holes -about 1-1.5mm dia - from which the gas burnt, giving the destinctive shape to the flame.

 

The flame was a deeper yellow than the modern bunsen flame which is burning methane not coal gas.

 

I have had first hand account of these as my father, born in 1920 had them in their house, electricity didn't come to our village until 1938.