Ironic really, After all this talk of late of Tilley quality, a friend of mine asked me to have a look at his recently acquired brand new tilley, which didnt seem to work that well. Have a nosey at the pictures gang, firstly the twin jet vapouriser ....... Next is the strange overpumped base plate that seems to be biased to the right side of the picture rather than bulge equally........ And lastly the year..... Think i'll be advising him to convert it into one of Mr Shouksmiths bird feeders
Wow, not seen an over-pumped base before? How does this happen, do Tilley pumps make more pressure than say Vapalux versions or are the founts just made with thinner gauge brass? Steve.
Hi Steve, Yes, the later, post 1960-ish Tilley tanks, are very much lighter construction, and easily over-pressurised. It is almost impossible to over-pressurise a Vapalux/Bialaddin tank. Steve.
Can't get my head around why the bulge is so one sided though It can only be down to workmanship can't it can't it ???
The quality of the brass which is used in the X-246-B tank is very poor. Remove the base plate from a scrap tank and the poor quality of the brass is clear, I can bend and straighten it with my bare hands. Jeff.
This is not really a brass quality issue. These lamps may fail in this way but Tilley don't stress crack so the brass is good enough. It is a consequence of the base plate being inserted cup down. Generally over pumping a post 1957 Tilley will dish the base plate down evenly but if the solder seam is at all faulty or weaker in any place then the bulge can be one sided like this. Once this happens even or one sided makes no difference the tank is scrap. ::Neil::
All this does answer my questions I posted some time ago regarding the state of quality of new production Tilleys. It is still very troubling to see however as one would expect more from Tilley, or any company providing an expensive product such as this for that matter. The fact that the lantern was supposed to be brand-new and shows an already deformed fount bottom does not bode well. As much as I like to support companies that continue on making traditional (theoretically well-made) products, I can't say I have much faith in Tilley if they see no problems in putting out such obviously faulty goods. At least it appears as though the Korean owner of Vapalux has kept the quality standards very high, however.
A couple of questions... Is the base normally flat? And why is a bulged base reason enough on it's own to scrap the tank?
Yes the base was flat when it was manufactured and you scrap the tank because the solder seam has torn open. If you think about it the curved dish down makes the size of the base plate aparently larger. The curve is longer than the straight line of the flat base. That extra metal has to come from somewhere and in fact it is pulling away from the base flange and if you cut the tank open you will see the solder seam has started to seperate. Just bashing the base plate back does not repair this torn seam so because these are not rare tanks they are scrap. ::Neil::
I feel a blown 246B autopsy coming on a nice sliced section right through its middle, to hopefully show this parting of the soldered joint
Well, I know soldering like I know the sole of my foot, but I wouldn't have thought so. I think Tilley must have rolled over the bottom edge of the tank rim after soldering in the baseplate. That means you can unsolder the base easily enough, but you can't remove it without unrolling the rim. Once you'd effected the repair, you'd then have to re-roll the base rim. Given that these tanks are ubiquitous, it's just not worth the bother I would have thought...
Once i've performed the autopsy, i'll post some pictures of the sectioned tank so you can see what David and Neil are referring to
OK perhaps cup is not quite right. Dish might be better. All lamp base plates are circular with a raised rim and are a sort of a shallow dish shape. When the dish is the right way up and pressure is applied to the plate the forces tend to try to flatten out the dish but also exert considerable downward and sideways thrust. In the correct position the dish is stronger because the thrust is also acting against the raised sides of the dish which tends to force the outer rim of the dish outwards which reinforces the solder seam. In other words the solder does not have quite so much mecanical work to do in order to maintain the shape of the dish. Any distortion therefore requires more pressure and in any case begins to tear the solder seam from the botom up but the side force mitigates against the tearing force which has to operate inwards. Invert the dish and the seperation starts at the top because the down thrust adds to the forces tearing the solder seam but in this case there is no side thrust acting on the dish sides because the rim is outside the pressure vessel. Consequently there is no counteracting side thrust to hold the rim against he side of the tank. So an inverted dish or what I called cup down makes for a weaker tank base and is a goodly part of the reason post 1957 Tilley base plates dish down. In fact the thrust on most lamps is getting towards a ton. If I remember right a Tilley at 30 psi has a total down thrust of around 0.75 Tones. In that sort of region anyway so you can see that in order to contain this force not only the strength of the base plate is important but so is the engineering design. In 1957 Tilley for some reason inverted the base plates and it is these later inverted bases that tend to fail. ::Neil::
When Ray sections the Tilley tank and posts an image or two, all will become clear. Well, all except the reason why Tilley started to build tanks this way in the 1950s...
I used to say to folk that Tilley sacked their last engineer in 1957 and employed an accountant. That is of course not true but 1957 is when Basil Tilley sold either his interest or the whole company. So that year there was a change at the top and I suspect the new owners started to look at production costs and this design change was the result. ::Neil::
Yes, it was just a pity they didn't realise that, as with most things in life, there are some corners you can't cut. Having said that, it seems they still don't realise it... I'm just wondering what the current state of play is with Tilley. I was told the Guildford premises were, in fact, just a room above a supermarket where they simply assembled lanterns from parts they bought in, but I never saw it for myself. Anybody been to Frimley to see what's there..?
There is a great picture of the inside of a blown Tilley tank in [url=http://0flo.com/index.php?threads/3634 thread. It clearly shows how the solder seam has failed with too much preasure. It's Post#17859. Sid
My friend wanted his poorly Tilley back, but not before having a little play with my intrascope. As you may of seen from the earlier pics, the base isn't as badly blown as the above pic of Tony's,However, i've taken three intrascope pics of the same tank from three different area's....... How it should be ( the left hand side of the original picture, where the base isn't blown) Next pic is the start of the seam splitting And finally the seam to the right handside of the original pic (Where the base had blown to one side)
I've always wanted one of these. Can you shed some more light on yours? Are they becoming more affordable? Thanks, Dan
Hi Dan I bought mine as an ALDI special at £70 Dan So Yes !! affordable in my eyes ! the trouble with ALDI is there stock soon runs out and then you just have to wait till the next batch which could be some time this is mine.... but the nearest to it that's currently available in the UK is Here
Re Scopes We bought one with software for work off "the Bay" that plugs into a USB port of a Laptop/Notebook for about AUD30.
