A friend at a Swedish pressure lantern forum is fettling his brass Radius 119. He has run into a problem where as the valve house is in one part together with the pipe that goes down into the tank. On my non brass Radius the valve house alone is fitted on the tank with an aluminum washer. In the enclosed picture You can see some black remnants on the blade of some kind of seal. Where ti find this seal? Any ideas of why this lantern has this feature?
They have a lead seal between the pricker control body and the fount bung. It looks like the complete bung and pick-up tube which are permanently soldered onto the fount came off the fount. It should be possible to solder it back on. Unscrew the pick-up assembly from the pricker control body first, though.
He has compared the tank with a spare part one and they really differ from each other. Brass one to the left. Strange, it seems not to have been soldered to the tank at all. Could this 119 be a special model? Regards Matti
Special model, maybe... Can't see why the two would be any different other than one being all brass and the other coated.
I have never seen this before. Very unusual. Does it look like the block from the brass lamp can be unscrewed? If it does then it is quite likely that the tube section is supposed to remain in the tank. Maybe it missed being soldered during production. I have never had this part out so don't know what it looks like. As for a seal, I would make one out of lead for this area.
So the outer thread on the control body is not used it seems. Very interesting. Almost like these parts were intended for more than one type of fount. Judging from the lack of other fittings on the fount it could be late production?
I have always wondered what that outer thread could be for. So far I havn't found a Radius product that has a corresponding thread. Maybe they had something on the drawing board that never made it to production. I would guess that the tank is quite early. You can just see the pump tube at the far left of the picture of the two tanks. It is on the shoulder of the tank which makes it ones of the first variations. If it is a genuine brass version, then it would also be early as the later ones were always (there can always be exceptions) nickel plated.
I have not encountered one with the outer thread here in SA. The Radius 119 was available here both pre-war and post-war, judging by the Ltd or not, the fibre vs bakelite control wheel and plated vs enamelled hood caps.
Yes, the outer thread did disappear at some stage. I don't know when. Probably when the old mould had to be replaced. I assume these moulds got worn and had to be replaced at some point.
Thank you for your thoughts and ideas. He says the lantern is fairly unused but it leaked fuel, probably that's why it is not more used.
Do you know where it leaked fuel? I can't imagine fuel leaking from the join where the tube screws into the tank. It should only be air at that level. I would still recommend making a lead washer for this joint. The lantern looks quite good and is an older version. Probable around 1932 'ish'.
It seems to have the control body fitted wrong/bad angle into the pick-up tube. And the tube itself wasn't soldered onto the tank as they normally are. So it probably leaked from two places.
The parts came loose at last! The fuel tube has to be soldered into the tank. It leaked air, not fuel.
It looks like there could be remains of solder just below the flange that sits on the tank. Maybe it has been soldered at some stage?
An update of the progress. My forum friend has now soldered the tank. So the fuel tube did come loose unintentionally after all.
Here's some action pictures of Janne Wikström's well fettled brass Radius 119. Is it possible to determine the age of this Swedish brass pearl?
Very nicely done and a nice looking lantern. I enjoyed reading the investigation and learning from it. Cheers Pete
