I hear people talking about a vaporiser being on its way out or similar phrases, my question is, other than it sooting up inside which can be cured by heating and quenching, what actually is the problem that makes them unfit for use anymore
Hi Darren, Good question... It is the needle hole or jet that wears, letting too much fuel through. The older vap tubes look to have been better made and can sometimes be cleaned, but the more modern ones aren't really up to it
Just as Podbros states above. I have come across lamps that have had very little use but the vaporiser has been knackered, also I know people that have used NOS vaporisers and they have been defective so I would suggest that there was a level of manufacturing defects.
A non-chemist writes: I recall being told on CPL/CCS that the process of vaporising of hydrocarbons results in carbon deposits; this is apparent when the jet needs cleaning or the Tilley cleaning wire is removed and you see the crud. It is not just a mater of dirty fuel - it is simply part of the process. When too much carbon builds up within the vapouriser, it obstructs the flow (probably firstly where the wire passes through the guiding cone) and, I think, insulates the liquid fuel thus requiring longer pre-heating. It also tends to produce uneven vapourisation when running through poor, uneven conduction and reduces the gaseous volume of the vapouriser - both of which encourage pressure cycling - and the light output hunts. Tilley's answer to this inevitable issue was disposable vapourisers; once it became clogged, it was replaced. By tapping, heating and quenching you can loosen some of the carbon, but it still needs to exit somehow. There were gadgets made to clear stove burners whereby it was heated by blowlamp and compressed air blown through. This should mean the carbon converts to CO or CO2 and is expelled as a gas. But as the jet cannot be removed from a Tilley, you can't force sufficient air through to make this technique effective. As the life of the vapouriser was determined by the choking process, there would be no point in making the other elements have a significantly longer life. So, if you persevere with a vapouriser by cleaning it (the best you can) for either the challenge or the economy, you may find the jet becomes enlarged. You sometimes find that by tweaking the jet knob, the lamp runs brighter. Initially, I thought the needle was closing the enlarged jet. But I found that it was the carbon deposit on the cleaning wire were greater close to the guiding cone and by moving the wire up a bit, it allowed the gaseous fuel to pass more freely. Scraping the carbon from the wire cured it. I have a donut lamp that is particularly susceptible to this - and I don't know why.
