well, you all warned me that these things multiply... now I’ve got four!! Two being looked after by my aunt but this one bought yesterday is the current project. It’s really quite unhappy, rusty and seized up. I think x246 but any more info on age etc? I guess this is chrome plated copper? Will the chrome clean up (how?) or would I do better to sand down to the copper? I’m planning to repaint the hood with exhaust paint - is that advisable? Not sure what to do about the frame though, it’s bubbling with rust. Cheers! Tim
Ideed, they multiply like rabbits. It is a X246 alright with a speculum plated brass tank. It looks to me the plating is too far gone to polish it up, but you can try. If it doesn't work out you can always sand down to bare brass and polish that. Painting the hood with any paint will not withstand the heat. But if you decide to try it anyway, please share the results.
Use elbow grease and solvol autosol before you go at it with the wet and dry. That way you will see whats what with the plating and rust. you may be surprised with the result before you decide what to do. Nothing can be done with a hood except finding a replacement off the internet
You'l be surprised how well the fount looks after some work with the autosol..elbow grease, i'm afraid! The top of the hood/cap looks to have gone to rust, but lower down there is still some enamel which will clean up with careful use of fine wire wool then autosol or brasso. As mentioned above the black hoods/caps are widely available but yours is the early black hood with only one 'lip'. I would try degrees of cleaning on the cage, increasing from just cleaning to a polish then wire wool.. you will find out how far you have to go to get your desired effect? Hours of fun!.. Good luck p.s. it will be a Brass tank/fount plated with 'Speculum', similar to chrome but sadly not as hard wearing.
@Tim Francis Yes ...... they multiply, the little devils. The speculum plating on the brass will clean up surprisingly well when using Autosol or Mothers. My personal choice is Mothers having excellent results over the years with this stuff. The hood is the single lip one and can been cleaned up, I use Brasso after a wash in hot soapy water. Unfortunately, their is not a paint known that can stand the heat. As stated, it’s better to look for a replacement on either the bay of evil or from other sacrificial Tilley X246s that you can procure for parts. Enjoy your fettle, and don’t forget to post your pictures of the “money shot”. Cheers Pete
It should restore well enough and make a good user lantern, but the pump is not correct, it's from an X-246-B lantern.
Thanks all for the advice, everyone. I've managed to dismantle most of it, everything was pretty seized up, and discovered some worries. Firstly, there doesn't seem to be a hole in the top of the vaporiser. the pricker was seriously carboned up so I'm planning to heat and quench it so maybe the hole will... reappear? Also someone has used grips to remove the control cock assembly using the nut beneath it, whose name I don't know, and in the process mashed it to the extent that it can't be removed. I can't remember if this needs to be removed to replace a gasket or if it's just there to position the control cock so it doesn't have disagreements with the cage. Shame that the hood can't be painted - would a hood from an x246a/b fit? What about the cage? can that be painted? or just sanded away to bare metal to good effect? I think I'm going to go for stripping the speculum (it's really called speculum?! you're not having me on?) as I think that way I can get a really nice result but I don't think I'll do that until I (hope) I get it working. Thanks for letting me know about the pump, @JEFF JOHNSON
It's Greek or Latin for mirror - you could always use a search engine to check out 'speculum metal'...
@Tim Francis David was not pulling your leg. Here is a description of speculum metal: Speculum metal - Wikipedia. Tony
@Tony Press , Thank you, I had actually found that page, interesting that, being used by Herschel's 'scopes, reflections in speculum metal must have accounted for several important astronomical discoveries Tim
It'll still look great after some work. I'd keep the hood. Its very rusty but if its not flaking and crumbling apart with holes, I'd say its saveable. Paint is not going to take the heat on the hood, be it VHT or engine enamel. Remove the rust as much you can with whatever means you have but not with the usual acids. Acid would haze up the porcelain enamel further. If the lamp's mine, I would at least attempt to coat those bare steel areas on the hood with some black muffler/stove cement. Heat cure, followed by a little fine sanding and buffing to at least make it appear smooth. It might not be as glossy as the original enamel but might be better than exposed steel. Depending on how well the stove cement would adhere on the steel, this might or might not work out.
I've polished up founts in the same state as yours and I'm quite sure you would tell me I had swapped it over for a different one after I'd finished. I cover mine with a homemade concoction of citric acid and wallpaper paste called GSR. (You can find the recipe on the sister site CCS). After that's done its job, generally after a few hours, I wash it off and use my buffing wheel on it, but mother's mag will do the same job. As for the hood, all hoods deteriorate eventually unless you don't use the lantern and keep it in its box. Yours seems to be in a pretty good shape all things considered. Now, others have said it but it's worth repeating again. There is no paint capable of surviving the temperatures lantern hoods have to deal with. Lantern manufacturers used enamel, bare brass (which tarnishes to black over time), chrome plating or nickel plating. No manufacturers used paint because they would have had 100% return rates, and no, the intervening years haven't made miracles possible. If you remove the enamel from a hood you either have it re-enamelled or end up throwing it away. At best you've wasted a perfectly good enamel hood, at worst (on a rare lamp for instance) you've destroyed an irreplaceable piece of history. If you want a better looking hood, buy a new old stock one and keep it for display, otherwise congratulate yourself on finding such a relatively good specimen! Yours will clean up well!
Thank you for the advice, @ColinG. I'm glad I didn't go at it with exhaust paint then! Would you do anything to the hood to improve its appearance? Currently I'm struggling to clean out the vaporiser which is blocked.
Honestly there's not much, Tim. I've considered dabbing oil on the affected areas when it's hot as this will carbonise to black which won't show as much. Other than that, you see Tilley hoods on eBay all the time for relatively little money so you could buy one for display and keep the original for when you run the lantern. BTW, I hope I wasn't too stern in my initial reply, it's just that over the years we've seen some pretty dreadful things done with lamps and lanterns and it is honestly worrying each time someone suggests respraying enamel hoods, or using a grinder on brass tanks, or electrifying a beautiful old lantern beyond repair! On YouTube you can find loads of videos of guys wrecking lamps in the name of "restoration". The only guy to watch is Jeremy aka @X246A who goes by the name Broadlander on YT I believe. There's also a guy in the US who does the same kind of thing as Jeremy only with Coleman lanterns.
Tilley vapourisers aren't serviceable - they're meant to be replaced. You can faff about with heat and quench methods but you'll not get all of the crud out because the aperture at the lower end is small. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable for a short while...
