Coleman Ventilators

Here’s one for the paint chemists: Did old style lead-based paint have different adhesion qualities to modern paint?

Cheers

Tony

 

Some of the older Coleman finishes are quite bulletproof like the Colac finishes. They're kind of ugly, so if the colac is missing it's because somebody removed it. The seafoam paint they applied to wartime lanterns and post-war lanterns and stoves can be quite fragile and scratches/wears off quite easily. Same with ivory paint applied to 1941 US 500 Speedmaster stoves. And then there's some of the crazy late 60s-early 70's 335 and 220E lanterns that they would paint after flash nickel plating the fount. On those, the paint comes off in sheets, but you do end up with a cool lantern, even if the nickel plating is a bit thin.

But yes, I think some founts got better cleaned of manufacturing oils/residues, better batches of steel, better batches of paints, and better surface prep. Poor paint adhesion is not just a modern thing when it comes to Coleman. Definitely worse though! Check out this 222 where the clear decal and some poor storage pulled off the paint in a crazy relief of the fount...



Mike.

 

Ok, one reply for everything. If you do your own nickel playing it’s actually cheap. The bottom of my fount was actually kinda decent. Those crack looking things are all over the fount. I ended up buying a mint ventilator. And because it’s already a mishmash of spare parts all over eBay, I’m going to nickel plate the fount because it looks cool and let me tell you my grandfather was a huge fan of chrome and I don’t want to shed the money for chrome plating. Also, no it is not nickel or chrome plating under the paint that had those cracks as far as I know.

 

Yeah, re-nickelling sounds great if you have the means.
I would probably just phosphatize, prime and spray-coat it with paint.

I've read somewhere that those leaded paints, particularly the red-lead primer have excellent adhesion properties. The pigments alone could form a very tight, leafing clad on the surface of the part being coated. And if I've not mistaken, a single coat of those leaded paints would be sufficient to serve as primer, base and top coats all by itself. Some of the red lead-primed steel structures could remain rust-free for a long time even without the usual top coats.

 

New vent came in with 1 day shipping

 

That’s a very nice lid there @Levi Tomey

 

Also, my other grandfather has a 200 from the fifties that’s nickel plated. He said that it was Coleman fuel. I bet him fifty bucks it was kero. Did I win my bet?

 

No.

 

Fifty bucks!

 

Well, that’s slightly annoying