Just when I thought your fingers had frozen off you're back!
Great dissertation on cool weather. I worked on Alaska's North Slope but it was all like inside a plant. Company provided everything including hunting down your truck to refuel it once per day with naphtha. Two sides to the field back then, east side was ARCO and they built pipelines off gravel roads in the summer. West side was SOHIO and they built pipelines off ice roads in the winter. I was on the west side work so we pretty much started in January when it started to get light and work until the ice roads were melting. We had nice cold weather gear and of course plugins if you shut your truck down, which most people didn't. They had low oil pressure kill switches you had to override to start up. I think most every truck got two or three new windshields every year due to rocks flying from big trucks.
Different than being on your own, but thanks for the memories.
Why do I hate steam punk? I love it, but lots of time good antique parts are destroyed to make it. I tell myself they were on the way to the scrap yard anyway.
Not sure on the galvanizing, but if you had black iron pipe you can warm it up (600C maybe) and brush it with a brass brush and get a great brushed on brass patina. Probably easier to paint it black, then paint it bronze or copper and try to wipe it off with rags.
Very good looking lamp you've made. New lubricators with the clear cup aren't too expensive, by the way.
Glad you're back!!