I have found myself a Sinumbra lantern in quite good looking condition. But I don't get it to burn correctly no matter if it's gasoline or Kerosene, with a mesh in the vapouriser tube or not. If I close the cleaning needle a little then it helps however. That in my opinion says the lamp is burning fat. Then I noticed that the air tube is choked/strangled (less diameter) in bottom end, should it be like this? I have understood the burner is a AGM type, anyone know if it's an "impossible" model to find jets for, or was it a quite common model? Any other Ideas what could be wrong? Burning white when needle partly in cleaning position Burning bad , guess to much fuel, to less air. Kind Regards Joakim
Joakim, Maybe the jet orifice is enlarged, I had this issue on a Veritas superb, a new jet worked. Cheers Stephan
A new jet will be near impossible to find. The last lamps sold with that burner were the Quirke's Goulburn Specials in Aus in the early 1950s. Might just be worth asking Sands if they still have some though. There are a couple of tricks maybe worth a try but these are drastic. First rub down the top of the jet with an oil stone to just slightly reduce the metal. A few thou off can reshape the hole and improve performance. Need to be careful though because there is not much metal there so only rub down untill the metal around the jet hole is bright metal clean. Second is to insert a 0.007" wire in the hole and squeese the tip in a big vice and then pull the wire. This also reshapes the hole and will reduce it to more like the correct size. ::Neil::
Like the others, my first guess would be the jet, but I am curious about what you say about the air tube. How much has it been reduced? Does it look like it was always that way? If it is getting too little air, that will have the same effect as an enlarged jet. I wonder if someone has tried converting it to alcohol at some stage?
Thank you all for your answers. I had a bad feeling the jet gonna be hard to find item. Before putting force on the jet (good idea by the way) I will start with trying lamp without the airtube. The reduction looks well done I think. The inner diameter on tube is 10mm , at the reduction only 6mm. Kind Regards Joakim
@joakim.stromberg Good idea. Here are two images of the air tube from my AGM 335 which has the same burner as your Sinumbra.
Hej Joakim, I checked my Sinumbra lantern air tube and no restriction. Probably the burner on your lamp will perform better without that restriction. Looks very well made and may have been fabricated as an option for making it run on alcohol. Mind you this lantern was launched in Sweden during the era of WW1. Hard to get fuel supplies in Sweden those days. /Conny
Thank you Henry, I'll come back tomorrow with result. Feels good when looking on your pictures. Kind Regards/Joakim
Maybe you could try running it on alcohol before you remove the restriction. I think it's worth giving it a go anyway, and we all might learn a little bit about these lanterns...
Yes, that's a good idea. Put som meths in it and see how it performs. You should be able to see by the naked eye if it is converted, though. Alcohol jets are so large that you immediately can see that it's not a normal paraffin or petrol jet.
HI The restriction seems to be brass or coppar , same as tube. You were right, the lamp run pretty good with alcohol. tried with no airtube and kerosene/gasoline but with not so good result. So you are probably right , durinh war time they converted the lamp, perhaps you could a buy a tube and jet? Here's a picture with alcohol, much better light. I'll keep it as a alcohol lamp, even if I personally not so fond of them. But it's hard to convert it back, and it's part of the lamps history. Kind Regards Joakim
