I've spent some time fettling my Tilley lamps this weekend - just routine servicing swapping out the washers for viton equivalents now I have them to hand. A couple of lamps aren't giving there best due to knackered vapourisers. As the new ones are expensive & often not very good from new & older 'old stock' ones are still quite expensive on ebay etc I'm looking for an alternative. I read a good while ago about a vapouriser fitted with a standard removable nipple/jet. Does anyone know if this was a collectors one-off or is someone selling these commercially - & if so are they any good or better than the originals?
I'm not aware of any commercial venture with these - I think they were just one-offs made by a German collector. I did have a link to a website where he gave illustrated instructions showing how he did it. Unfortunately the link went dead a couple of years ago...
Hi, Tom makes brass vaporizer with a 250cp PX jet and needle. They work well! Also some other collectors from Germany has made this kind of vaporizers. I have 3 5" (2x Tilley, 1x Vapalux) and actually one 7" (FL6) in my lamps. http://www.shop.hasag.info/index.php?cPath=13&language=en
Hi ! I was told by Jim in australia ten years back of a couple with a lamp buisness somewhere between Canberra and the coast ( thats the east coast not the west coast ) Theres a collector on this site called Colin of wollagon area ( definately spealt wrong ). Colin I expect you know who I'm thinking of ? They were fitting jets to the tips of vapourisers, are they still ? ...mick
http://www.oillamps.com.au/ Thanks Mick - out oif stock although they make them. I'm checking out Leo's link - closer to home!
I'm pretty sure your thinking of "Associated Kerosene & Oil Lamps Australia". They've got lots of unusual stuff and they also make quite a bit themselves. Mainly wick stuff, but a fair bit of pressure stuff there as well. One of the things I've been considering geting is the Tilley/Kayen vaporiser. According to the website they are out of stock at the moment. You can see the vaporiser about a third of the way down this page.
Hi ! Yes that sounds like the couple I was thinking off living at Braidwood with lamp buisness. ...mick
The German site only seems to have the 169 & the Australian site the 606. Good value for money down under! I've dropped them an email. Curious on the price of the jets & needles as well & whether he does the 169.
I got sent a brass Tilley 606 a while back from a couple in Aus to test them out. It was a piece of junk although I don't know why. There was an issue with the needle rod dropping out when changing the vaporiser which was a pain but more importantly I could not get the damn thing to run for more than about 5 minutes before the mantle turned black. Worked great for five minutes and then you were twiddling the pricker twice a minute to keep it working. Odd really and I did try to insert a brass mesh to see if that would help but it didn,t. I can't see anyting wrong with the design but for sure some thing was not right. I don't know if they persisted and ironed out these problems, maybe they did. ::Neil::
Hi All, I was talking to Kevin Holmes several years ago and he bought out a Tilley / Kayen Vaporizer that TW Sands was going into production of. Amazing bit of work was supposed to outlast Tilley by another 50% + TW Sands started production and marketing when Tilley shut them down. Next time I'm down that way will chase him up. There appears to be a demand for it. Kayen did produce a Vaporizer that unscrewed just after the cock. Pretty sure I have one here. Will have a look around in the morning to find it. Now how about that ...found it in 2 minutes I would hazard a guess that any Kayen Vaporizers with a small drill mark will unscrew. Colin
I wouldn't know for sure, Juan, but I suspect not. The problem would be that there's no nipple to remove so the Tilley vapouriser is effectively a tube open at one end only. That would mean it would be difficult to get the cleaning fluids right into the vapouriser where they need to be and also to get the crap out. Additionally, there's a restriction up near the jet end - IIRC, some sort of plate with a hole in the centre through which the pricker rod just passes. That would make it even more unlikely you could get the vapouriser cleaned out completely. I saw an image of a sectioned Tilley vapouriser on BBL some years ago which showed the internal set-up. From memory, it may have been Pete Sav. or Steve Wood who did the work and posted the image... Tilley designed them to be non-serviceable parts and, effectively, that's what they are. They're meant to be replaced rather than serviced. That wouldn't be so bad, except some NOS (new old stock) Tilley vapourisers can't be relied upon to work from the box. That's a pain, especially when you've just paid around 20 quid for one... I did have a Bialaddin/Vapalux vapouriser that unscrewed at the bottom like the one shown. I think that was probably a manufacturing defect rather than by design. I presume, though, all such vapourisers will unscrew if sufficient force can be applied in the right place...
I thought it was NOS vapourisers that were generally ok & the new ones that were hit & miss? I've also had a vapouriser unscrew at the bottom.
There was a duff batch - don't know how big or how long ago - of Tilley vapourisers and they surface from time-to-time. I've seen a letter from Tilley regarding this, where they blamed the suppliers of the tubing they used to make the vapourisers. As far as I'm aware, the current ones are OK. Having said that I rarely change a Tilley vapouriser these days because I rarely fettle or use Tilley stuff...
The bottom end of the modern Tilley vapouriser has an unthreaded steel fitting which is clamped into the vapouriser tube. It's a poor idea and many faults occur from it, I have heard of collectors using silver solder to make the end secure. The older vapouriser has a threaded brass end which screws into the threaded tube and this method is far superior.
Willi S. suggested this one: Top: old, blocked vaporizer Bottom: His idea. Brass parts, machined to fix a Petomax nozzle. Here you find a how-to: http://www.scherning.de/Lampen/Willi_Vergaser.htm The thing with brass is, it conducts heat better towards the tank than steel does. Thus leading to a hot tank. Erik
He used a thin brass rod where he cut in a thread for fitting Petromax needles. Erik Willi just sent his drawing. Perhaps ha can be convinced to give more detailed descriptions.
Hi Doron, I think there is no way to make him getting into this again. Well, I told him to have a look here. There is one thing about him, he does make some things on the lathe if he feels like doing it. But presently he has lots of work to do with a stationary Deutz Diesel engine... Erik
