Picked this up today ,my first heater. It belonged to the late father of an old neighbour of ours who used to work with my wife’s Father We moved 10yrs ago , it was a chance FB market place listing I thought it was an R1 , but I’m told by those that know it’s a rarer RH57 So far it’s had clean up , a light recommissioning, builds pressure but burns yellow on ignition , so it’s going to get a full strip down to see if I can get it serviceable
Thanks Robbo , I’m having issues The vaporiser seems to be scrap , the tube rotates on the spigot So I put the burner on a 246B, got good Bunsen flames However when I add the mantle , it’s fireball Probably a good idea to get a modern wire mantle too
Can you silver solder the original vapouriser ? I doubt very much that adding the mantle caused the fireball ! My personal experience with modern repro wire mantles available in the U.K. is they're crap ! I've had two, the first one didn't even last one winter, pathetic! The second one did but it didn't last two winters, very disappointing. I did manage to get one from Tailand or South Korea, I can't remember which and I can't remember the seller either but the mantle's still going strong after six or so years. So, if you can't get a genuine N.O.S. Tilley 1126 and can't find a foreign one, stick with the asbestos mantle. You'll not be disappointed.
Silver solder is an option , hopefully get time tomorrow Henry , but I need a couple of 169’s anyway , so on the scout for them for a PL53 and a spare Great info on the mantle Maybe I’m not getting the preheater heat into the burner with the mantle in place ?
A bit of a mystery with the flare-up, the clean flames on your test burn without a mantle are a classic example of what one is looking for. I wonder; was there any wind when you tried it with the mantle on? It really doesn't take much more than a breath to send the heat from the meths torch away from the top of the vapouriser and burner. Tilley made a draught shield to contain the heat when pre-heating their radiators in less than ideal circumstances, if you don't have one, use the search function to find examples of home-made ones. p.s. I found the mantle seller, it was gksk2146-3 from South Korea but alas, he no longer sells wire mantles. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_..._blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=gksk2146-3&_oac=1 p.p.s. it cost me £37.78
Thanks , great info @Henry Plews Silver solder , I thought I’d fix the one for my knuckle burner whilst I was at it
Great work - you got it going pretty quickly and even managed to salvage the broken vapouriser. Did the flare-up occur simply because the burner wasn't pre-heated enough? I've found the radiators are tricky to light, especially outdoors. My method is to light the attached wick first, let it burn down then use a torch from a Tilley lamp to continue heating the burner. After about 4-5 minutes it should be hot enough to ignite without a flare-up.
Just to make the above post clear, the Bialaddin heaters have an attached wick for pre-heating. The Tilley heaters use a clip-on torch the same as the lamps. You can use two torches, one after the other, to preheat the Tilley radiator or do what I did and fit a captive wick to the Tilley radiator like the Bialaddin ones have. This makes things easier, as you only need one additional torch if necessary.
Yes I think it’s the preheat and being an asbestos wick not a wire one , I think it’s worse 2 pre heaters or a blast with a blow lamp , both have worked for a clean ignition
U need to find an mesh replacement bulb, but that's going to be nearly impossible. Other options are, think outside of the box. Make one yourself, from an tea egg, an little tomato puree can, everythings possible, I've seen these heaters with an can like glow thingy,
The asbestos one works, it just needs to be treated with care, but im aware of 2 possible options in the UK for a replacement wire / mesh version
