This is basically a standard AGM P66 but the label has A.L. Lighting Systems and I am pretty sure this means it was actually a product of the Albert Lea-Brite Lite factory after it was bought out by AGM. The tank was sound but the fuel feed was blocked so I had to drill a hole in the base plate and then drill an angled hole through the side wall of the handle extension which forms a small internal reservoir. This means the lamp runs out of fuel when there is actually about half a litre left. I blocked the base plate hole by tapping M10 and inserting a bolt with a solder seal. Not pretty but functional. The other problem was the shut off valve did not work. I swapped the burner casting with the same part from another AGM P66 which has a blown tank but more importantly has a second shut off at the top of the handle so that lamp can be used if the tank can be fettled since only one working valve is required. The air inlet in these lamps is difficult but I adapted a Schrader valve by threading the end M3 which fits just well enough to work and with some PTFE tape is a good seal. ::Neil::
Neil, I have one of these lamps that is a dead ringer for your lamp except it has the 2nd shut off valve at the top of the handle. Are you able to offer some thoughts on why the 2nd valve on the handle is there? It seems wasteful and in fact it is like the lamp head and fount weren't originally designed to be attached to each other.
I really don't know. It seems to be a redundant feature. The burner head on these is a hollow wire lamp and was used on all manner of pendants and the like. I suspect the fact that there are not many to be found with that lower valve indicates that the manufacturers also decided it was redundant and dropped the idea. ::Neil::
Thanks Neil. My thoughts are that lamp manufacturers were all too well schooled on design and costs associated with unnecessary components of lamps. So, I don't think it was a redundant design, I think it it more likely that the lamp wasn't originally intended to have the hollow wire head but hollow wire heads were used for reasons we will never know.
Oh I don't know. They were not design geniuses, we know that from the fuel pick up system and they were not alone. Tilley have been using a redundant shut off valve for 95 years. ::Neil::
Yes, I have seen your very good topic on the fuel pick up system. I suppose we could look at it in a couple of ways. It was an adequate design for a product they expected to have a shelf life of say 5 years. It was a poor design for 100+ years plus where the fuel pick up tube would eventually be blocked and they left you with little or no way to access it. In the case of the redundant Tilley shut off valve, I had never thought of it being redundant or unnecessary. I'm not about to mess with you on the Tilley subject but I can hope to learn from you. I had always assumed the shut off mechanism in Tilley, apart from the pricker, was more or less used to stop fuel from leaking out through the jet when the lamp wasn't in use but still under pressure. Perhaps even a back-up measure in case of a worn or missing pricker.
100 years ago these guys were still learning and developing. Not really surprising to find they did some strange things. It is mostly redundant. Bialaddin/Vapalux manage very well without a shut off and I have never had cause to fettle the Tilley shut off valve in a table lamp or a lantern. Waste of a good valve rubber to do that. Where it is of use is in the Do nut lamps and others like AL15 where the fuel will gravity flow if you remove the vaporiser. In fact I suspect that is why Tilley designed this valve and they then used the same valve/pricker in lamps that really don't need it. ::Neil::
Thanks Neil, Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense. Tilley, using the same valve for all lamps makes a lot of sense from a commercial point of view. Less tooling costs, design costs etc.
