G'day all, I've been messing around with a Radius 103. The early 103 models are the ones without the red enamel hood cap? My 103 has this. It is steel and painted black. Is this correct? I need a pricker. Are they still able to be bought or do I need to make one? Is the 103 a 300CP lamp?
@Matty Yes the earlier 103s had a nickel top. The model started around 1938 and apart from the nickel top, they also had a black fiber wheel. I am not sure when they changed to the red top but expect it was sometime in the late 1940s. The wheel also changed to a re/brown plastic part (the same as on the 119). The steel cage base plate was originally nickel plated steel. The plating never lasts long and most of the ones I have sen have been rusty. Obviously someone has tried to fix that in the past and painted it black. The cleaning needles are the same as for any Petromax type lamp, so should be readily available. Yes, it is a 300cp lamp. I would have expected it to have that stamped on the tank.
@Nils Stephenson Thank you sir. The 300CP question was only asked because as I was creating the topic, it came to mind. It probably is stamped on the lamp. Nils, this base plate. This is exactly the type of thing that see on other lamps that you have to consider whether or not it was manufactured in the same factory as other parts may have been. Overall, the nickel plating on this lamp is very, very good, In fact, I'd say the cage was excellent. Why then is this one particular part chronically different to the rest of the lamp? I think the only possible answer is, this base plate was manufactured by a party outside of the main factory and Radius bought them in. The 3rd party's nickel plating was not up to the same scratch as the Radius factory - much as you see time and time again on other lamps.
I have no idea one way or the other about who manufactured the cage base plate. Both Optimus and Radius have the same issue and I always assumed it was because they plated directly on the steel rather than giving it a coat of copper first. As far as they were concerned it lasted long enough for it to be out of warranty and it didn't affect the function of the lamp. In general the nickel plating of the Swedish factories is very good. The only anomaly are the cage and hood for the Primus 980/981/1080/1081. Here the tops have an extremely thin coat and probably half the cages are the same. Just look at it too hard and it comes off. In this case I wouldn't be surprised if they used a sub supplier for these parts.
That is a very good point in regards to the steel not being copper plated prior to nickelling. I don't believe there is any prerequisite that steel must be copper plated prior to nickel plating. What the problem is, if you don't copper plate steel before nickelling and you don't do a good job of the nickel plating, water/air can get to the steel and cause it to rust which then acts like a cancer to corrupt the entire piece. If steel is nickel plated at a high level of quality, copper plating isn't necessary. I was very interested to read what you said about the lamp models that have poor plating. Companies can go through periods where their quality isn't as high as it once was, then it is rectified and quality work resumes. However, to me, it is very telling when the same part is constantly poor whilst other parts on the same lamp are constantly high. When you get the same founts that are consistently being of less quality than other contemporary founts, to me, it is almost certain that those founts weren't produced at the same factory. If you had some founts of all differing kinds of models suffering the same poor quality, that is one thing. When you have just certain models being affected that is a different story.
