Hello folks, I have a Veritas 9955 lantern. The seller wouldn't ship to the USA so instead I had it shipped to @ColinG who stripped it down and gave a thorough check out to make sure it was ship shape. Colin found the jet/nipple was over sized but he did have a spare which he sent along with the lantern. Colin also found a leak in the fount so I used Caswell tank sealer which did indeed take care of the leaking fount. I asked Colin to paint the fount so he gave me some options and I chose green which turned out quite nicely. Thank you Colin. I really like the green color. The whole process for the fettle too quite some time to complete but before it could be completed there were other problems to deal with and one was the broken pricker wire. For this problem I contacted @AussiePete who was very happy to make some new prickers for the 9955. Pete the new pricker works fantastic. Thank you Pete for helping me out with this. Well long story short it was time to do a test fire. OK it's looking good so far. I decided to shut it down and place a mantle on it and give it another go. I have quite a few of these Chinese mantles which have proven themselves less then reliable with developing holes and being quite fragile. I use these for the test fires now. Again it's looking good. Well so much for looking good due to the gland packing is shot so there's a flame that shouldn't be there. I got that taken care of today with some graphite packing. Also yesterday I notice a small flame coming from the top of the vaporizer which was also taken care of this morning with some of my brass anti seize which helped seal up the threads. So not more extra flames. OK so now it was time to fire this baby up. As with my Veritas Superb this lantern starts to light up before the denatured alcohol is half way down in the preheater cup. Here's the 9955 back together and up and running as it should. Even in the daylight it is still pretty bright. Cheers, Norman
Nice looking lantern and a good result. Great to see the "team effort" involved here. I do like the green BTW, @ColinG what shade is it please?
And Norman... it was nice to have been part of a team working on such a venerable old lamp! There's me in the highlands, you in the States and Pete in Australia! It's great to see it up and running again and yet another Veritas working well!
Hi Colin, Yes it was indeed a team effort indeed. And as you stated another Veritas working very well indeed. Cheers, Norman
Hi Martin, You should have seen it before Colin turned it into a thing of beauty. It had black paint on the fount that looked like someone painted it with a paint brush. Talk about ugly it was done right hideous. Thank you for your very kind comment. Cheers, Norman
@Norman Well done Norman. She’s a beauty and it’s great to see she behaves like the grand lady she is. Thank you for your kind words, it’s a pleasure to help out mate. In truth, the myth of the recalcitrant Veritas lanterns is been disproven. Cheers Pete
@ColinG Thank you, I did chuckle seeing the can, but it is a great match and you have done a good spray job. Thanks for sharing. Regards, Alex
G'day Pete, Thank you for all of your help in getting this Veritas 9955 up and going. She is running as she should. Yet another Veritas up and running without any problems. So who started the rumor about Veritas lanterns being shit. I have two here with another coming soon and all of them are working well. You have several and so does Colin and again the Veritas is running well for both of you. So how is this possible if these lanterns are crap. Cheers, Norman
@Norman, you just got to wonder ..... After seeing your 9955, I realise that to make my life complete I must find a 9955. It’s probably “Kismet”. Cheers Pete
@Alex Smith I know exactly what you mean about the paint! Thing is, I'm lucky enough have my own industrial, temperature controlled oven which allows me to spray and then bake most paints projects in a matter of hours. I can achieve 3 coats with little more than 20 minutes between each one after which I usually leave the finished fount in the oven for a few hours to cure thoroughly. Once it's cooled it's normally rock solid and very smooth - so long as I've made a reasonable job of the spraying in the first place.
@ColinG you are lucky to have your oven. Fettles that involve painting tend to pass me by, to do a good job in the uk you have to paint in the summer which is when i have to take the Mrs out and painting projects inevitably get put to one side. I have a pig heater project that has been waiting for three years now, as well as numerous others. Envious of your painting tranformations. James
The oven was given to me free would you believe!! The school I teach at had it in their store room with other things they no longer used so they just asked me if I wanted it. It's been so useful. I can even spray in the winter by warming the parts first.
We'll, if the temperature gauge is to be believed, 90°C. When I'm spraying in the winter I leave the fount in the oven for a while to heat up, give it one coat and put it back in. I leave that for maybe 1/2hour and give it a second coat and repeat for a third time. It then gets left for a few hours and that's it! If I hadn't been given my oven I might have bought a cheap second hand cooker and put that in my workshop.
Hi folks, I ran my 9955 for close to 6 hours before it ran out of fuel. It would have run longer if I had filled the fount to capacity. Here is my 9955 sitting next to my recently fettled Coleman 237 running quite well indeed. Cheers, Norman
Well done @Norman They're both running very well. That 237 sure pumps out the light, the Veritas is no slouch either. Cheers Pete
I feel like a proud parent to that P9955!!! Ha ha. Seriously though, that's a good photo and both lanterns are running really well.
Thanks guys. I suppose there are a few which would consider running out of fuel unacceptable because these lantern should be able to run on fumes. Oh well I guess they can't win them all. Cheers, Norman
