Advise needed please, tonight i fired up 2 Porkpie Table Lamps, one short stem, the other tall stem both had the same Champagne shades (Original) I noticed that one was a lot brighter compared to the other even after 2hrs no change in brightness. Both were not flickering, both had no fireball. I quickly turned the dim one on/off to clear the jet, no change. Could this possibly mean the generator is stuffed. Ive cleaned the wire, i can see the light at the end of the hole in the generator. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a beautiful light the lamp is giving off but just a lot dimmer from the others. Could it be that one generator is the 606 and the other generator as a 169 could size player part. Any ideas ?
Thanks Nils i will try this see if that makes a difference. Hi George, not sure what you mean as side by side theses a huge difference in brightness. Regards Darren
Hi Darren, Sorry, should have done a better job of explaining! Your lamps look like they are two slightly different colors, the height is slightly different and so are the shades. Taking all this into consideration, I thought perhaps this could cause the light to play tricks with your eyes. I have two original Petromax 829 lanterns that run great. If you keep them a part, just a little distance between them, they are very bright - to my eyes - but if you put them next to one another one always outshines the other! Illusion maybe?
If a vaporiser was on its way out could it still burn with no flickering or fireball, and still burn dim ? Or do they all start flickering with a fireball if they are on their way out. Also would the 606 burn brighter compared to a 169 due to the vaporiser being a shorter tube with less distance for the kerosene to travel ? Regards Darren
I suspect the simple truth here is just normal wear. Tilley burners and vaporisers die of old age. They can still look pretty good and give a steady light but I have measured plenty at 80 to 100cp so less than a third of the rated power. These are near 70 year old lamps and will have seen plenty of use so neither will perform as they did in the 1940s. One worse than the other is also normal for old Tilley burners since they are hardly likely to have had exactly the same usage. ::Neil::
Like me, you live in mud wasp country. I would check the air tubes and the burner itself to see if a mud wasp has got in and created a partial blockage. Yes, I know you have fettled the lamps. That doesn't mean a mud wasp didn't find the lamp after fettling. It is probably a longshot but it is certainly well worth exploring. You may of even missed a partial blockage when fettling the lamp. I certainly have missed this type of thing when fettling.
Tilley like any other vaporiser can suffer from carbon build up and reduced output they can be somewhat refurbished by heating to dullred and allowing to cool a couple of times and gentle tapping along their length with pricker removed. I do not recomend quenching in water as if any is left behind it can burst a vaporiser when heated
