So - I while back I purchased two NOS vapourisers. One resulted in flaring about the mantle and one was OK. I had forgotten about it until it surfaced in one of my rare clear-ups so I thought I would put it in a Firebowl to see if it would work acceptably in that. Nope: Firebowl became Fireball. so - I have lost the opportunity to send it back by now - I do not supect foul play as it was sealed in "old" greaseproof paper, quite undisturbed. Anyway apart from looking at it whistfully - what can I do with it ? I have written it off to experience so happy to entertain more "risky" ideas. I have looked at it with a magnifier and the jet orifice looks bigger than it ought to, but have no way to measure it. I have even considered building an extended mantle support for an old burner and trying Tilley 500 mantles. cheers Chris
Some members have reduced enlarged Tilley jets back to a usable size and there are some posts somewhere on this forum which describe the method.
Been there and done that with a standard vapouriser. It was about as successful (i.e. not) as Tilley's stab at 500cp from a 606 vapouriser, so I can see your logic in using a vapouriser with an enlarged jet. Tilley's 'logic' in getting 500cp out of the standard vapouriser entailed increasing the tank pressure to 135 pump-strokes. In a standard X246B tank, I rather think not. In a Vapalux tank it was a possibility, I felt, but my thumb thought otherwise...
Did Vapalux market petrol lamps? I have been told that the jet orifice of a petrol vapouriser/generator is larger than that of a orifice for vapourisers/generators that are used for kerosene. So, using a vapouriser/generator that is designed for petrol will cause flare ups if kerosene is used.
I have built up a collection of different brand prickers and measured them with a vernier gauge. Having recorded the widths of the small wires, I use different sizes to approximate the size of the jet by trial and error. They vary between .009" and .015" from memory. Rough method but useful.
