Following repairs to one of the Tillites @Tony Press generously sent me, and after I’d realised that the sooted-up globe resulting from my first test firing wasn’t due to the Tillite over-fuelling but was down to my impatience in not giving it long enough to pre-heat … Success! Plenty of pumping to maintain the pressure while the Tillite was in operation, you’ll have noticed. Just like any ‘rapid’ pre-heater torch - lantern, stove, or blowlamp. It ran for hours untended, so no air leak from that notoriously troublesome Tillite valve seal. It’ll be my go-to lantern for the next few weeks, so I’ll report back on the durability of the repair. John
Wow top job mate, looks like a fair bit of work involved in the lighting process. At least you have a working one, I have 5 and 4 of them have the Tillite, none work though with the Tillite, so congratulations.
@Dashwood Not so commonly seen working because the pre-heater design was inherently flawed and the lantern equipped with it, introduced in 1959, was on sale for only a short time. Those sold and returned under warranty had the pre-heater removed and a blanking plug fitted in its place, not a good deal for the buyer when the lantern was sold at a premium because of the pre-heater feature. I covered the pre-heater’s failings and my work to correct them in THIS post. Two things wrong with it: an on-off shutter pivot pin that was pressed into its locating hole in a component and not silbrazed in place. It often fell out as a result; secondly, the shutter/seal was made of the wrong material and did a poor job as a seal - it leaked. Solutions were to silbraze the pivot pin in place and incorporate thin viton sheet in a modified shutter/seal. So far, so good!
Yeah, I'm not a fan of how you have to twist the entire torch by the bung right under the nozzle where it can get blazing hot, and looking at how close the torch is to the vaporizer is just asking for your fingers to slip off the torch and strike the preheated brass just makes me shiver and cringe.
@Dashwood Thankfully, there’s no heat transmitted to the knurled grip of the pre-heater. @Reinhard Yeah, it’s already been done - with a Chinese Anchor pre-heater by @Henry Plews HERE - but I wanted an authentic working Tilley component you understand. It’s working well, but I’ll confirm its durability (sealing of the viton shutter/seal) after a couple more weeks of firing it up daily.
