Hi All, I have just bought these two lamps, I've just had a hankering lately to be reminded of the camping holidays I had as a kid with my Mum and Dad. It was always exciting watching Dad light the Primus or the Tilley lamps, waiting for the flare up that happened often, lol, though I'm not sure those were the actual brands but thats what we called them. I've ordered a couple of service kits from Fettlebox so hope to get fettling soon! Cheers John
Welcome to CPL @JohnH Those are two nice 246 Guardsman's, dating from 1950 to 54. They should clean up nicely.
Thank you all for the welcome and identification, despite watching several videos I suspect I will still have questions! John
Welcome @JohnH A nice pair of lanterns. Once cleaned up and fettled you will enjoy them a lot. Don't forget you need a Tilley lighting torch to get them going. (It's a bit like not having any batteries for your new toy on Christmas morning...)
Welcome from Queensland Australia. Your Tilley Guardsman lanterns, after a clean and any replacement parts taken care of, will give good and faithfull service. I’m looking forward to reading your future posts with pictures. Cheers Pete
Hi Fireexit1, I have ordered a pre-heater off Ebay UK so it will take awhile to get here, meanwhile I will strip the lamps down and clean them ready for the service kits, also coming from UK. Both pumps pressurise though one is better than the other and the prickers work so I'm hoping there won't be any surprises! Pete, thank you for the welcome, yes I just want to get them in as good as condition as I can without totally restoring them. I will try to put up pictures of progress. Cheers John
Hi and welcome! My favorite Tilley are the “PL” models, they really have the charm. What you have should turn out very nice! Again, welcome to the neighborhood “funny farm”!!
Hi All, I have dissasembled and cleaned both my lamps, the shiny one I decided to clean more thoroughly, polishing the brass fittings and vapouriser tube. On the other one I cleaned the parts with a soft brass brush. I have assembled the lamps with seal kits from Fettlebox and did the dunk test, no problems there, which was good! My one query is on the burner assembly I have a split ring sitting in the groove, I guess this is to hold the mantle but all of the videos I have seen show the mantle being tied around this groove, so my question is do I need the split rings or are they redundant when using tied mantles? I am awaiting the pre-heaters from the uk, once I have got them here I will post some photos up. Cheers.
@JohnH The split ring on the bottom of the burner is the remains of a Tilley ‘happy’ mantle. These mantles came with the steel ring woven in, you’ll only find these mantles as NOS these days. Modern Tilley marketed mantles just slip on the burner. They’re easy to use, I guess costs in manufacturing put paid to the design... So, to answer your questions, you don’t need the ring!
I completed my lamps today! A few photos leading up to the first light up! This is the shinier of the two lamps. I'm quite pleased with the way it looks but not sure if I will keep it polished. Thanks to all on here that have commented and answered my newbie questions!
Thanks for the comments all, much appreciated. @Tony Press I thought it looked a better fit the other way up but as I didn't know I followed the instructions for a X246B, or is the bug shield different on them. Or have I misunderstood? Cheers John
The modern insect screen as found on the X246B is concave and if fitted with the rim facing upwards there isn't enough room between it and the glass to fit the meths torch.
@JohnH I write this yesterday and didn’t press the send button… That's a good point... I've not seen that illustration before. The later "dished" version is supposed to be placed with the convex side facing the top. The description in the text says "pressed down" and "raised" which you don't need to do with the butterfly insect shield; but need to do with the later version. I'll have to look at some other illustrations... I'm quite happy to be wrong! Anyway, they do a good job of inhibiting the damage caused by kamikaze moths either way round. Cheers Tony
@Tony Press and @Henry Plews Thank you for the explanation that the X246B shield is different, as I said that was the only reference to it that I found. I have now turned the shields the other way up so that the globe sits within the rim of the shield, which does look more correct! Cheers John
