Help dating & identifying a lamp

Hi I have just received a rather rusty Willis and Bates lamp which I believe to be early 1940's but the hood is clearly newer. The tank is steel and the gallery is steel at the base and brass on the top

any ideas on what date the lamp is and what the original colours should be?

 

Unless that's one of the very early ones which were a blue/grey (never seen one in the flesh!) it would be brown.

There are a couple of threads on here about it

http://0flo.com/index.php?threads/5558

http://0flo.com/index.php?posts/1356

 

I looks like an early Vapalux 300, introduced in late 1941 and made of steel. The slotted vents were replaced with the single opening in 1944, so 1941 to 1944 seems a good guess for this one.

They were painted in Rapidal Grey until shortages in about 1944 led to the introduction of the Maroon colour.

The preheater is wrong, it would have just been a round dish mounted on the vapouriser.

The top is from a far later lamp, but the one you need isn't impossible to find.

Someone will be along to correct me if I'm wrong.

--

The pressure tit was removed in 1942, so 1941 to 1942 seems to be the time frame for the production of your lamp.

 

Steel tank with a pressure tit and slotted collar globe cage I think means 1942. The hood is from a 1950s Bialaddin and the meth cup is also a later Bialaddin type. These were mostly military and painted drab grey with a brass sloted hood and a grey/blue cap. ::Neil::

 

Thanks for the info what would be a close color match in today's paints

 

Hi CarlM81

I will see if I still have the old spray can I used for mine when I get home from work.

Regards, Jeremy

 

I found an old post by Ian Ashton who suggests plasti-kote super gloss medium grey.

 

Hi CarlM81

Just checked the paint I used and it is Plastikote medium heat, just as Highland Dweller posted.

Here are a couple of photographs of my 1943 dated steel fount Vapalux 300.



Regards, Jeremy

 

Thank You will take a look in my local shops at the weekend

It almost ready for painting now

 

Hi CarlM81

It will be good to see how you progress with this project. Please keep us updated. Good luck.

Regards, Jeremy

 

Highland Dweller, my Vapalux 300 (where the original paint was still existing) was brown not maroon. I believe that maroon came in for the 300X not the 300. For confirmation, my 300 is all brass with pressure tit and brass cage (with the single air hole in the cage).

Carl, are you going to use an etch primer as a base?

 

Hi expat I wast to sure wether to use a zinc primer or etch primer?

 

you seem to have removed or treated the all of the rust so I would use an etch primer.

 

Yes, in 1944* the 300 went back to all brass with the single opening for the control cock and at some point towards the end of the war the pressure tit made an appearance again

You may well be right about the maroon colour being introduced for the 300x, I made an assumption that the colour introduced in '44 was the maroon.

Time for me to revise Ian Ashtons Book...

Yup, brown from 1944 and then some 'more fashionable colours' including cream!

*dates are as ever approximate.

 

CarlM81, only the lower portion of the lamp gets painted, it should be polished brass from the cage rods upwards.

 

I only intend to paint the tank and the lower part of the cage but I have to try and find the correct hood as I received it with the wrong one

 

OK, I'll take a step back.

The hoods do appear now and again, patience is a virtue as they say.

 

Highland Dweller, from what has been previously posted, cream wasn't a factory colour. I'm just going on what I've seen as my experience with the early Vapalux is seriously limited!

FWIW, my 300 came with blackened frame rods.

Carl, be prepared to have to straighten any hoods out unless you get lucky!

 

expat, most of what I know comes from reading Ian Ashton's book and from what I've read here. I'm just trying to help and if I'm coming across as argumentative then I apologise.

 

Yet they do turn up from time to time - with a rather smart dark blue vitreous enamelled 'hat'...

 

Very strange, I unexpectedly ended up with a 1943/44 300 of my own today, it'll be here at the beginning of next week. Rough, but complete other than that bloody dish.

Still, fills a hole in my Vapalux and Bialaddin collection.

 

Highland Dweller and David, as I posted, I can only go on what I've read as I have limited experience of the older Vapaluxes - and I certainly wasn't old enough to remember them when they were new! I'm open to correction as I prefer to hold to facts than fond notions! If they were turned out of the factory in cream (with smart blue hats) then they were and that's fine by me! [Gives me another colour to paint the next one (if I find another)!]

Now however, if they have only been painted thataway afterwards by someone who liked the colour, then that's also fine by me - I'd just like to "know" that it's not original.

 

I'm certainly not old enough to remember, I am a product of the eighties.

The factory is gone, the records are who knows where and it seems that the only person who researched the subject before the factory closed was Ian Ashton and I think the culmination of that research is a close to fact as we are going to get.

Everything else is conjecture based on catalogues, adverts, memories and lamps found in the wild.

 

As far as I'm aware, they went with everything else to South Korea and that's where they remain, presumably.

I think it's fair to say that not everything that happened in the factory ended up being recorded in the Works Diary. For instance, we seem to have a very sketchy idea about the Vapalux donut lamp - had it all had been recorded at the factory, we'd have the whole nine yards - and we haven't!

As far as the Vapalux 300 is concerned, that was wartime and I imagine the energy of the factory was directed into producing as many lanterns for the troops as possible as quickly as possible rather than making a record of every little change that took place...

 

Images and text from Ian Ashton's book which I reproduce here under the 'fair dealing' facility of the relevant legislation.

I've been searching for years for a genuine cream example but never managed to find a complete one - I've got the dark-blue enamelled hood but no more. Neither have I got anywhere near the fabled green version. Over the years I've bought a couple of green-coloured lanterns from eBay which looked possibly factory finish in the photographs but on arrival, proved to be no more than repainted tanks...

 

..That is a great picture....showing them side by side like that.....

...Do you know if the book is still in print at all David?....I badly need to get some Literature on Lamps including the Tilley one you recommended a little while ago...

Many thanks, T.

 

As far as I'm aware, PB, it's never been 'in print' in the conventional sense of literature. I think Blurb works in such a way that they'll print off a copy for you (or anyone) when one is ordered. That supposes you want a physical copy to hold and put on a shelf. Otherwise the whole book is available gratis on-line for reference purposes, which was Ian's intention.

Speaking of Ian, he doesn't seem to have been hereabouts for a while. Has anyone heard anything of/from him lately? - I hope he's OK...

 

He was logged in a couple of days ago...

 

..Ah, ok thanks David......Blurb eh?....hmmm ..

will have to[/b] look into it???????

 

www.blurb.co.uk/books/1413766-vapalux-and-bialaddin-pressure-lamps