Hi everyone, I now have three Willis and Bates lanterns, a Bialaddin 305, an M1 and an M320. One thing I've noticed on all three is that the pricker control cock is in different places on all three. I looked in Ian Ashton's excellent book on Willis and Bates, looking at all the pictures and noticed that in all the pictures the pricker control cocks were in different places. Some were between the fillier and the pump, some were to the left of the filler, or to the right of the pump, and some, like my M1 are round the back. My question, idle curiosity really, is did Willis and Bates have a preferred location of the pricker control knob, or did they just assemble them without caring where the pricker control knob ended up? I don't want to go changing anything to make them all the same, like I said, my query is more out of idle curiosity than any thing else. Many thanks. Tim
I think the control cock is wound down until it sits snugly on its seating washer. But where it lies in relation to the filler and pump is not important - that is a function of the thickness of the washer and, probably, the orientation of the threaded bush and even the starting point of the control thread. The cage can be adjusted, of course. If you want them all the same, I think you'll need to play around with different washers.
Hi Ian, Thanks for that, it was only idle curiosity, confirmed my suspicions really, I'm happy with the way they are so won't go messing with anything, as they say, if it aint broke, don't fix it. Tim
