Early type guardsman with old style cage handle. I paid £5 for this lamp. Missing glass. With much care but some gentle persuasion and many days of soaking in penetrating fluid and WD-40. Just a matter of taking time to slowly work everything loose without damaging the brass. A bit of spray, a bit of gentle heat. Again and again slowly trying to get enough grip to turn slightly whilst not crushing the parts. Finally the burner removed and disassembled. Just got to get all the carbon out now. I think the hood maybe past restoration. Might end up with second hand black hood and eventually cough up for re enamel in brown. Maybe even consider replacing the burner with one of Julian's repro ones. Would save a lot of pain. Dialema, do I preserve history or replace for an easy life
@SeanTilly When reassembling that disassembled burner, be very careful of the threads. Threads on Tilley burners wear with use and it's often difficult to get them to seal properly on reassembly. My advice is to first use copper grease on the threads at reassembly. Then check for gaps in the join between the top piece (Mixing Tube, Part 211, often called the mixing dome) and the burner body. The burner body often gets distorted with heavy use, and an airgap here will badly affect the light output. If copper grease is ineffective at the burner/mixing dome connection, try cleaning that joint again, and then using muffler putty. It is for the above reasons I only ever take a Tilley burner apart as a last resort. I clean them throughly, but do not disassemble them. Cheers Tony
It does look as though this burner has suffered some distortion, particularly around the burner cap which came off surprisingly very easily. It came from a farm and I suspect it was a well used tool during lambing before electricity to the farm sheds. Apparently it has always been at the farm. Not sure about copper grease, it's not very heat resistant. It burns into a black mess and causes more seizures. This is why it's use was discontinued on automotive brakes in favour of ceramic caliper grease. I have quite a few spare burners so not a great worry. Most of it came apart fairly easy it was the retaining nuts that were seized. I can see why Tilley changed to the split pin version as they don't seize in and are easier to maintain.
Copper grease is fine on the threads; it will help seal them, and is easier to take pieces apart than muffler paste. It’s not needed, of course, if the threads are ok; and you’re right about it being messy outside the threads. I always “wipe clean”. Copper grease (or nickel) grease is often used in pressure stoves as well. It’s not a “latest new idea” in this trade. The problem with the later “split pin” Tilley burners is that the later editions are overall smaller and lighter and, in my opinion, do not perform as well as the older, larger burners. The split pin burners with steel air tubes (arms) present more problems, and the business here in Australia that specialises in kerosene lighting equipment suggests that the steel air tubes be replaced with brass ones… In extreme cases, I’ve silbrazed burners back together, but they’re not serviceable, except for cleaning, after that. Cheers Tony
Think your right about the copper grease tony i have used it many times on threads and it does a great job in stopping leaky threads. Yes it burns off but it seals hot areas well. Old school sealer used to be soap i remember Neil said in a post way back Cheers pete
@pete sav Yes, soap (pure soap) is definitely an old school thread sealer, but I don’t know how effective it is at high temperatures. Neil has been using copper slip for quite some time. He showed me its use and effectiveness when I visited him in 2019. Cheers Tony
