Sounds like a cool project to me, if you can find one of those incredibly rare fixtures. Regarding ballasts, I assume electronic is indeed the only way to go for non-standard lamps like that. No problem as long as you use a high quality one. Programmed start would be the way to go, unless the original fixtures were instant start and you want to replicate that.
They are around, I know as I have actually seen one in person a long time ago.
I don't care what it looks like as long as it is not too beat or bent up so as not to obtain good dimensions and some detail.
These were originally kind of a preheat type Westinghouse fixture, actually a mercury rectifier (RF) in a glass tube internally coated with phosphorus.
It had a special ballast with a big starting relay arrangement.
The bulbs were 85 watt T10 58 inch long not 60 inches long with really strange internals that had a filament on one end only and two carbon electrodes on the other end.
One end had a two prong plug like a electric socket and the other end had a three prong plug so it only fit in the fixture one way.
The RF lighting program was originally started by GE and Westinghouse sort of tagged along later with their RF offering.
Another odd feature of these fixtures is that the bulbs were three inches lower on the anode end than the cathode end.
It seems the reason is because the mercury needs to drain back down to the anode end, so that end is lower.
The bulbs were position sensitive.
The whole GE RF fixture was tilted at a angle to one end and had to be installed that way to work correctly.
The Westinghouse RF fixture was installed level, but the bulb holders were lower on one end than the other to make the bulbs 3 inches lower on one end.
The development of the RF lighting by GE was going on at the same time that the other more common fluorescent lighting development was going on.
At some point in the 1940s, the plug was pulled on the GE RF lighting program.
No reason given, but the 100 watt T17 bulb and the RF bulb had about the same light output and of course was not position sensitive.
But they did put out a lot of light for the time.
And they were instant starting.
Kind of the VHO fixture of 1939 to 1942 and they made many thousands of them during the war for aircraft plants.
One aircraft plant alone had over 17,000 of them!
I have some pictures, but you can't really be accurate just using pictures.
Sometimes museums loan out items for replication or to use for show.
They loan out pictures and statues all the time.
A electrical museum might loan out a light fixture also.
I need to buy one or rent one for a while.
