I picked up these 2 heaters from a local guy who I'm sure is on here but he wasn't going to fix them so he gave me the challenge. These will take a while since I'm starting from scratch and don't know what I'm doing. I've only done a few coleman lanterns but nothing too hard. From the looks of these, I see 1 tank that needs it's minor welding to keep the top and bottom pieces together and missing a line to the heater cup. Of course there are no ceramics but I'm not worried about those yet, I need to get these things up and running as best that I can. I've watched a few YouTube videos on their operations but nothing solid on tearing down and rebuilding. It's exciting to start a new project.....but I have so many other tiny ones being worked on at the moment....but I'll have to tease you with these pics only for now. Lanterns need fixin first, then onto the heaters.
Thanks for showing the Radiant Heaters. Something has caught my eye and I think it could possibly have far reaching implications as far as a certain area of GPA manufacturing history is concerned. You have made my day, perhaps my year.
What caught your eye? I'd love someone to show me where to find the correct date on these so I can help keep the history alive.
@Joshua Thompson There is a little bit of information here that you will find that helps date your heater. I had a quick look and couldn't find any advertised examples prior to 1925 so the dating looks to be pretty spot on. 1925-1928 Coleman #4 Radiant Heater
I've looked too but cannot find anything. How crazy is that? I borrowed the Coleman collectors guide 1903-1954 but it doesn't contain any heater info.
Your main ambition was to find manufacturing dates of the heater. It appears 1925 to 1928 is what you are looking for.
Nice acquisitions , Radiant Heater no. 4 began with the first entry for shipping from Coleman in June 1927. @Joshua Thompson Larry
@Joshua Thompson The same source as yours above shows 1927 and 1928 as years of shipping of the Coleman Number 4 Radiant Heater, and different models being exported before and after 27/28. Cheers Tony
Hey Joshua, any idea where to find the ceramics for the number 4 heater? I’m picking one up in a week but it doesn’t have the bricks. Thought I’d try my hand at restoring this old beauty. Thanks.
I did find a place online that has the ceramics but they never responded to my emails so I'm not sure if they're still in business.
A note about finding ceramic radiants/bricks for these Coleman heaters... I recently was able to procure one of these heaters and when I want searching for the bricks I discovered some interesting info. I initially called a guy named Cliff Hightower who owns Ceramics Products in Georgia. He kind of gave me the run around after telling me he had no inventory of the Ray-Glo R48 radiants (thats the kind used in the Model 4 Coleman space heater) and said he would have to wait on a shipment from the factory in Mexico. He said he would call me back with an alternative replacement option... but never did. After looking around more on the internet, I discovered EastWay Sales where I saw on their webpage they too stock the R48 radiants. They also happen to be located near to me in Houston, TX. So, I drove over to their shop and met the owner (his shop, btw, is very nice - filled with all manner of antique natural gas fired room heaters, accessories, etc.). Fortunately, they had exactly 9 radiant bricks left (the Model 4 requires eight). While I was there, the owner and started talking about his business and such. It turns out this guy knows about Cliff in Georgia. Apparently they are essentially the two last major distributors of these types of parts in the US. He also told me Cliff was "full of $hit" when he said he would be getting any more R48 inventory. He went on to tell me that the R48's were made for very old heaters from the 1920s, most of which have been dumped or gone away over time. As a result, he rarely receives any heaters requiring them. Interestingly, he told me that he got the bricks he was selling to me back in 1980 from a local ceramics factory that was closing down - apparently he has had these same R48 bricks on the shelf since 1980 and I was one of only a few people since then asking for them. He went on to tell me that there is a factory in Mexico that is able to make the R48 bricks, but they are of lesser quality, and the factory will only deal in orders of 500 bricks or more at one time. Because of that he said he would not be getting any new inventory since he probably would never sell them all! I say all of this just to let the interested hobbyist know finding these R48 radiants will be quite the challenge in the future; especially newly made ones. Fortunately, there is an alternative replacement brick that is the same height as the R48, but is double the width (it is the Ray Glo R209). It may not look like the original, but it would make any Model 4 more functional. It stands to reason that if enough people with Coleman heaters wanted to purchase the original R48's (that would require about 64 people needing 8 bricks/person) that the owner at EastWay Sales may be willing to place that order and actually receive the bricks. I guess one way to go about it would be to make a forum thread here where people could express their interest and coordinate the sale. At any rate, I hope this info is of use to some of you collectors. If you have any new info, or have found a hidden stash of R48 radiants, do let everyone know! It is a shame so many of these awesome pieces of history have become extinct, and the ones that remain are so difficult to make "whole" due to lack of parts!
Interesting story.I like that idea,I have a No.5 heater the use the same radiants….I’d buy two sets of 8.
So with those R209's I would only need 4 verses 8? I'd like to see someone else experiment with them before I do unless someone wants to donate me a full set These were in my garage all covered up and I haven't been doing much out there, stupid video games.
