Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place. Anyone have a name or info on his wee blowlamp? Any fettling info or general info on its use?
Yup it's a kero blow lamp. Veritas I think. They run like a stove. Fill the preheater dish with meth and pump when the flame starts to die down. ::Neil::
By the looks of it it's the small size. Originally used by plumbers and the like. Good for heating and quenching parts to loosen them as well as annealing (at least that's what I use one this size for).
This is a much copied design. I'm not sure of who came up with the original. I have a Primus 631 version of this little blow torch. A word of caution with these. Do your initial experimenting with this (and blow torches in general) outside. I learned two things about this little guy... 1) That little depression does not hold enough meths to adequately preheat the torch. 2) When not adequately preheated you have a WW II flame thrower. I shot a four foot flame across my dining room table Fortunately the missus was not around and there was nothing combustible on the table. After that little bit of excitement, I moved outside to continue the experimenting. Eventually I did figure it out and it works fine. Dan
Dan, I wish I'd read that before I first fired mine up as I went for one of the bigish ones as my first "flamethrower". Thankfully it was outside at the time! As it was I think the resulting flame could be seen from the ISS...
Thanks guys, not sure if its unfired. Looks to have been lit at some stage but it certainly hasn't been put to work. I must try and get it lit some of these evenings. Do I need a pricker or anything g for it?
Hi David, For sure, but it was a bit more complicated than that. These light and are controlled basically like Vapalux. There is no control valve. I did a typical slow start. I pre-heated with meths and just before the flame went out, I gently gave it a single pump and the torch lit fine but was very weak, I then gently gave it another pump and suddenly the flame thrower effect started. I'm guessing what happened is the preheating just got the inlet tube hot and just the lower part of the generator hot. Enough to handle the initial inrush of kerosene from the first pump, but then it was cooled off and no longer vaporized with just a little more pressure. You must remember these are small tanks and when full, there is very little air space so a single pump will send a stream of fuel a long way. It took about 3 preheats to get it to start properly. This preheat system is not very good, as the flame does not heat the majority of the generator which is inside the outlet shield. Monitor seems to have a solution for this with the extension with wicking. I don't own this torch, but it sure seems like a better idea in getting the pre-heat flame to where it needs to be (under the generator!). I can see why propane torches obsoleted these and the gasoline ones. The gassies are very practical but no where near as much fun. Dan
Yeah, my father was a plumber and used these daily - often at home so I grew up with them and lit them from an early age with supervision. Sounds like you had a bit of crud partially blocking the jet initially, hence the weak flame. Extra pressure then dislodged the crud and you got the jet of flame. Probably preheating also pressurised the tank quite a bit. Regarding Vapaluxes having no control valve, this is a moot point. In reality, they do. Tilley invented, and patented, the pricker with a shaped end to seal the jet, hence the 'control cock'. Vapalux copied this and a legal battle ensued which Tilley lost. Vapalux however, called their version a 'jet cleaner', which it is of course; although it did still seal the jet, right up to the end of production in England. I've no experience of the Korean Vapaluxes so I can't comment about those. You are correct in saying the blowlamp/torch shown above has no pricker control/jet cleaner. In this respect, they're like the vast majority of stoves which have no means of switching them on or off. Incidentally, my father always used kero from the tank to prime his blowlamps, never meths. There was always a twist of something absorbent e.g. cloth or paper in the well to act as a wick. This eventually burned out and was simply replaced whenever it did. Not pretty but I don't ever recall any flamethrower effects...
Don't most have a bleed valve on the filler? I can see Dans' Thermidor doesn't have one but my little Monitor does. But I've only got the one, and won't be getting any more. Davids' last paragraph sounds like a word from the wise!
Blow lamps can be exciting. I had one here a while back with a 6 pint tank and a burner that sounded like a low flying Concorde when running at full throttle and gave a foot wide flame about three feet long. Mind you it thew kero way very quickly. I had to use a propane torcj to pre heat it which kinda defeats the object I guess. ::Neil:: Oh yes and I did once see Concorde fly over the house at about 1 to 2,000 feet. Rattled the roof for sure. It was a joy ride laid on for Vaxhaul workers out of Luton Airport so they just flew it around a bit and I am only 5 miles from there.
I have viewed many, many images of blowtorches (blow lamps) and I can't say what yours is and the distinctive handle on yours has not caught my attention before and appears unusual for a bllowlamp. The info given to date is all pretty good. Firstly, a better picture of the filler cap, which appears to have the release screw in it may help. The very wide lower part of the handle attachment is also less common and may aid identification. Are there no markings whatsoever on either the fount or the air release screw? Finally our family kettle was of a type made by Endura and sold in Australia and I assure you the handle on your bllowlamp is so obviously the same or remarkably similar. (There were posts in CCS recently that show the brand of kettle but not the smaller version with the handle you have). Maybe this handle is not original, maybe it is. I will try to post a photo after the weekend to show you it is strikingly similar.
There's a Veritas one on google images that looks very similar if that helps. The auction it was on appears to have ended but the image is still available (for now)!
I'll get more pics up asap but I think it's definitely Veritas going by the Google images expat mentions. If I get ten minutes tomorrow evening I'll fire it up although it looks like it will need a leather cup for the pump as its all chewed up. It's tiny though not sure where I'd get one!
Have just found a couple on the online auction site which are identical to mine but are branded 'Phoemax'
This was probably made in Birmingham, UK by a group of manufacturers, originally separate, who later seemed to 'pool their resources' but not formally merge. They made stoves, too, and a similar situation exists with those. The products used common parts and were labelled with a manufacturer's name but the labels are frequently lost...
