hi all I recently added a m320 to collection (of two!)I used it camping and it leaked form every seal so I changed all the seals,, it still leaked after weeks of trial and error (and paint removal) I have finally located a hairline crack in the "skirt" of the faunt.i have opened up the crack with my dremel and was about to solder it,, but since I had pressurised it today with acetone in it (to clean inside) I felt it best I wait a day or so ( I don't like loud bangs).. my question is can I use normal plumbing solder/flux? do I risk melting the original solder? the base seems swaged so I doubt I can get the bottom totally off. any suggestions gratefully received. the lamp isn't for show it hopefully will be working for its keep
Welcome aboard Not sure myself about the soldering and would like to know as well? I have sealed a crack with JB Weld which held but for how long it will last I'm unsure? There is a product called POR 15 that is a sealing agent that is put into the tank as a liquid, swished around and the excess poured out. It coats the inside and goes hard. It is quite expensive though if your only doing 1 tank so if you have no luck fixing your tank then looking for a replacement would be best. Steve.
Given the 320 is ubiquitous, I'd imagine the easiest way to deal with this is simply to get another tank from a donor lantern. Having said that, others would try either soldering or perhaps sealing the tank from the inside with something like POR 15...
I think the cost of epoxy outweighs the value of the lantern.. by the way I just won!? another on ebay item (300983786529 does that make me an addict? this all started with me buying what was sold me as a petrol tilley lamp at a boot sale (actually 300x) I will give soldering a go I have nothing to lose the volume it loses is so so minimal the lamp is useable as is but it leaves a ring if used sitting on a surface. my first lamp is "in its working clothes" all new seals but just as it was in the boot sale I have an "off grid" house in Spain which is why a bought it in the first place quite why I need three though I cant explain to myself never mind to she who must be obeyed
I have soldered up stress cracks on the outside of tanks before. I just use ordinary lead solder and plumbers flux. I suggest using a bit of cotton wool soaked in water to try to keep the heat away from the solder seam at the base.
Not familiar with a M320 but if its a Coleman gas lantern be very afraid using it sitting in a pool of leaking fuel. Too quick I did a search and of course its Vapalux which is paraffin not as volatile but it still burns.
hi I am not thrilled with the idea of it sitting in a pool of fuel either hence my efforts to find the weep but on the occasions I have used it (hanging from a hook) it works fine though if it was gas (petrol) instead of paraffin (kerosene) I doubt I would have done that I was only trying to illustrate how small the weep was indeed its only when its sitting on a surface you see the "tell tale" mark it leaves,, it says in my divorce papers "prone to outbursts of irresponsible behaviour" but don't worry hopefully when my time is up it wont be in a fireball of my own making
This type of stress-crack is becoming known in Bialaddin and Vapalux tanks - a vertical hairline crack mainly in the skirt at the bottom of the tank but extending very slightly into the main part of the tank itself. I've one just the same in my Imber Research bowlfire (i.e. Bialaddin tank). It doesn't leak when the tank isn't under pressure, even though it may be full of fuel. When pressurised, a small ring of fuel forms around the base rim on whatever the tank is sitting.
I've had the same as David I also had one that was bad enough to drip even before it was pressured. I just lived with it until I had enough leaky tanks to make it worth buying the sealant which generally seems to work. Follow the instructions to the letter though and make sure you get a good thick layer around the edge of the base and in particular the area of the leak. Watch out for bubbles too as I had to give one of mine a second coat.
I just found out my TIlley 246B has some problem like this from the base of the tank, as when it is pressurised and lighting, I could see the top of the desk where the Tilley was sitting was getting wet and gradually become soaked with paraffin. This Tilley works OK apart from it loses the pressure in every 5 minutes, and getting dim, so it had to be pumped up about 20 times to get bright again. I left it burning away not pumping, and the lamp died off in 10 minutes. I was thinking of getting the JB WELD stuff, and paste it around the fuel tank where it leaks.
20 pumps to start with and then once the lantern is lit, gradually build up the pressure with another 100 pumps. That's with a pint and a quarter of paraffin in the tank and the pressure should be topped up once per hour. If you get an older Tilley lantern like a Guardsman lantern, then they have a pressure indicator, Jeff.
I usually pump mine around an extra 70 times once they've reached working temperature but it depends a lot on how much fuel there is in the tank - they could need more as Jeff suggests. Essentially, assuming everything is working well (particularly the vapouriser), pump it until there is no further increase in brightness. Beware of over-pumping, though, to compensate for a vapouriser that needs to be replaced. On the X246B it is easily possible to deform the baseplate downwards by tearing the internal solder seam. Bulged tanks are effectively scrap - hammering the baseplate back doesn't repair the torn seam...
Vapalux 320 and Bialaddin 315 seem happy with 20 pump strokes, and it just keep burning for hours. But Tilleys, they just die off unless keep pumping up every 5 minutes. But I will try 20 and 100 pumps as suggested with the Tilleys. Thanks for your info.
If you mean literally every 5 minutes, there's something vastly wrong - the lantern has a leak and at least one of the seals needs replacing. Do a 'dunk-test' to locate the source of the leak - from experience, probably the pump clamp washer. Vapalux and Bialaddins can be pumped up until your thumb hurts...
I found out the base of the fuel tank leaks on the problematic Tilley. The other Tilley is OK. I have 2x Tilleys and 1x Vapalux M320 and 1x Bialaddin.
Maybe, but if the tank needs pumping every five minutes, you'd have a huge kero leak. You're losing air from the top part of the tank. Pound to a penny the clamp washer is hard...
Further to my recent post "soldering" thank you all for your advice.. I have now soldered the offending tank .. I have added (I hope) some pictures of how I did it, not that it was a complex procedure. Since the repair I have run the lamp for an hour or so sitting on a clean piece of ply just to verify its not leaking anymore.. I used normal plumbing solder and draped a wet rag around the area being soldered to try and limit the spread of heat though I don't think I really needed to, I will soon be repainting the tank as it is to be a "working" lamp and the brass just tarnishes to quickly when it gets rained on. sorry I just failed to add the pictures
It seems my pictures are too big and have to resize them, in truth I have not looked into how to do this and I wasn't convinced anybody would really find them of use?interest,,I am much happier in the shed than on the computer
On the contrary, I think many people will be interested in this repair since more and more stress cracks like this seem to be coming to light. I think I'd also have filled that dent too, while I was in the area. Nothing wrong with your images either when optimised correctly:-
I decided not to push my luck filling the dent, but I suppose I could have let my repair cool before re heating/filling the dent to try and minimise the heat spread, In fact now I know it works I might just do that before I respray. I pondered if using a small blowlamp would cause less heat transfer than a big one I opted to use a medium size with MAP gas heating the crack very quickly and cooling it down immediately. I think the crack is linked to the incident that caused the dent. It took longer to crop and upload the images than to make the repair and reassemble the lamp
Yes, good point - on second thoughts, given I'm not an experienced solderer, I'd probably just use car body filler there. I wonder, too, if such stress cracks we're beginning to see in these tanks aren't connected with some sort of mishap (probably dropping the lamp where it lands on the rim edge) rather than aging of poorly annealed brass. In other makes, the stress cracking usually appears in the tank walls which have been subjected to the stresses and strains of repeated pressurising and depressurising...
A paint brush and a small tub of very soapy water will locate any leaks in seconds and can be done with the lamp lit... On the Tilley go all around the pump and the bottom of the control cock where it meets the tank also on older Tilleys the pressure pip. If the leak were either above the control cock or below the fuel line then you would see liquid paraffin leaking out. The soapy water trick is one that can safely be used to locate leaks in gas pipes and on gas equipment too...
Yes, so have I on the odd occasion. But not however on a lamp that I've ever subsequently lit. Many years ago (~10), when my collection amounted to about three Tilleys in total, I did mention my intention to use car body filler on dented X246B tanks. That was on a well-known lampie website based in America. To say the faeces hit the fan would be something of an understatement and to cut a long story sideways, the end result was I was told that I would NEVER be invited to become a member of that site. The objection was that continual flexion of the tank walls when pressurised and depressurised would loosen the filler which would result in a leak of kerosene, possibly resulting in injury, death or damage to property. I couldn't understand that because I was going to be filling dents, not holes. If the filler did fall out, then you'd just be left with the original dent i.e. no further forward but certainly no further back. Anyway, I've wondered ever since whether car body filler would survive on the side of a pressure lamp tank - the X246Bs in question still have dented tanks...
I am not an expert, and probably never will be one, but in my travelings I have seen blacksmiths in the Andes brazing lantern founts on the go, they just sand by hand around the hole/crack, immerse the fount in water, leaving the crack or hole above water level, then they use a gasoline torch, some borax, and a stick of brass to literally weld the hole shut, seen that twice and it is a show by itself, did not have a camera then ( early 90's), but I would love to go back just to take video and pictures of what those guys can do. They do that with glasses too ( the optical glasses frames).
