G'day all, I wondered if anyone has one of these Primus Wheel Heaters in their collection? I can't work out if it is called a Wheel Heater because of its shape or if it was actually used to heat wheels. 1915
The only thing I can think of, the burners heat a steel rim so it expands and slides over the cast inner wheel? When cooling it crimps and as the inner diameter of the steel ring is a fraction smaller than the outer diameter of the cast piece it is a very tight fit. Looks like a wheel for a rail car.
For fitting iron tyres on to wooden cart wheels? Or for fitting steel tyres onto railway locomotives would be my best guess. If that is a wheel in the print I would say railway truck/carrage wheels as the above post.
Possibly for re-lining via heat shrink. I did something similar to fit a cast starting ring to a fly wheel.
Interesting. Lighting up to a dozen blowlamps one by one for the job must have been quite a chore. How do you preheat them? Individual spirit cup or by subsequential preheat by the adjacent operating unit?
@MYN , I think these might be gassies! (look at the size of the common fuel pipe(s)). But they still have pre-heat cups....
It looks to be a device for heating the iron tyres as part of the process for shrinking them on to rims. I reckon you heat the tyre, which is well supported around its edge before dropping the wheel, flange uppermost into the tyre. Some persuasion might be required. When you wish to remove a tyre, it is usually cut away.
I think it is most certainly a kerosene fuel line. There are a dozen burners to feed. As you stated, they all have pre-heat cups. I also think the part arrowed is a priming pump.
I think the knob you are pointing at Matty is just a handle. It looks like they swivel and this is to control the angle. That would also mean that you only have to prime and start the first one then point it at the next one to heat, and so on.
Nils, Yes, I think that is a good call by you. I guess you could bleed each burner by opening the shut off valve after pre-heating.
I'd think its most probably kerosene-fueled, @Wim. Indicative are both the spirit cups and what appeared likely to be coiled tubes housed within the burners. I guess you're not gonna need the coiled tubes or spirit cups if they're gassies.
The burners look very much like the one used on the regular Primus 615, and with the year around 1915, the four-spoked metal control "wheel" would be right. The 615 is a kerosene burner, and was mainly intended as a motor lamp. I don't think that this gismo necessarily was all made by Primus, but they have probably used their burners. Or perhaps it all could have been a special order made by BAHCO?
From memory, the Wheel Heater was part of a demonstration of Primus kerosene products at an exhibition of Swedish products from many different Swedish firms. I downloaded the book I was so impressed with it. If anyone wants to see it, I'd be happy to send it to their dropbox accounts.
Here's an example I dug out of the junk pile below (meaning the basement...) just to illustrate. All other 615 I have, has a round, later control wheel, but this one has the same as in Matty's illustration. Unfortunately it isn't date stamped, so perhaps it's just before 1911, but if so, it's still the correct time span but may explain the tiny differences you will spot compared to the burners on the wheel-heater.
