Usage
The following text relates to the Canadian/American version of the device.
Daily use
We had no electricity, and our icehouse was not big enough to supply us with ice all summer. So we used the icyball. There was a daily routine to keep an icyball running. The following procedure was for the very icyball now in the Henry Ford Museum.
The Canadian version of the device came with a cooling chest that looked like a modern freezer, with the door opening upwards. It also required a large tub for water to cool one ball of the device, a mounting bracket to steady the device on the edge of the tub, and a blue-flame kerosene burner mounted in a tray. On one side of the burner tray was the burner and on the other side, connected by a tube, was an upturned cup into which you would fit a little tin of kerosene. The little tin of kerosene had a domed cap that had two small holes in it, so as to allow the kerosene to slowly dribble into the burner cup, tube, and burner. Fastened to the tube that went between the can and the burner was a float level.In the morning when we got up, we would start a fire, and put a kettle on to boil water for coffee. We would be careful to boil more water than we needed for coffee.
After you had poured out the water you needed for coffee, you would remove the icyball from the chest, and upend it, hot ball downward. (The handle had a bracket to support the device in this position.) You would pour a few cups of boiling water over the cold ball. After much gurgling you would carry the device to the water tub, which was about three feet high. First you would immerse the hot ball in the tub for a few seconds, just to fill a small reservoir on the top of the hot ball with water attached to a whistle. You would then reverse the device, hot ball outside and the cold ball in the water, resting the device on the edge of the tank. Then you would tend to the burner.
You would fill the little can with kerosene and screw the lid on. You would then tip the filled can upside down into the waiting burner can, and light the burner, positioning it under the hot ball. (The burner was not adjustable, and had an asbestos wick.) You could then go about your chores for the morning.
Later, when all the kerosene had been consumed, the water in the hot ball reservoir would boil, blowing a whistle to alert you that the burning was done. (Our whistle had been broken years ago, but we could hear the whistle from our neighbour's icyball.)
Then you would switch the position of the hot and cold balls, putting the hot ball in the tub water (hiss!), and in a few minutes the cold ball would be covered in ice, and ready to be returned to the chest for the day. (The cold ball had a hole through it, into which you could put a small metal ice cube tray.)
Once you got used to this routine, the icyball worked beautifully. It was certainly better than burying your food in the ground to try to preserve it.
Read more about this topic: Icy Ball
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