I negotiated with a guy on eBay for a Bialaddin 310 in not particularly good condition but for £15 inc shipping to me, it was definitely worth it plus I like a challenge. I bought it with a red hood which must have been swapped over at some point in the past so I swapped it for a spare green hood I happened to have lying around. Ditto the globe that I had spare. I've checked the vaporiser and control cock and cleaned those already and worked on the aliminium collar a little to see what the state of play is. It has a thick coating of oxide but on the buffer it comes up OK... just a smattering of corrosion marks that won't go. The green hood isn't in the best condition but it'll do for the time being. Also... I think it must have been for sale recently... if only I knew how much! ha ha. Anyway, it will be returned to a green that is as close as I can get to the original, and post some more photos.
Can someone suggest the best way to remove/treat the corrosion on the aluminium collar? I have a polishing buffer but I'd like to maybe chemically attack the oxide first before I start the polishing. I experimented with a small section but it takes a long time and I can't help thinking there must be a better way. I have mother's Mag if that's the best way to go.
Hi Colin, I think your best bet is the use of large doses of Elbow Grease! The use of an electric buffer saves on the E G of course. Aluminium is a fairly soft metal, but its oxide is pretty hard. In fact, that's what anodizing is all about, putting a thin, even layer of (possibly coloured) alu oxide on the item. When done properly (and not scratched later in life) it protects against further oxidation. You have a nice project at hand, good luck! Best regards, Wim @ColinG
I'll use the buffing wheel to clean up the collar and I'll definitely post the final results when it's finished.
@ColinG Colin there are some home Anodizing kits or DIY setup. The Anodizing is tough and doesn't corrode unless there are scratches. If you are wanting to get the original aluminum look it's pretty easy to do but if you want to dye the aluminum frame it takes a bit more work. Whatever you decide to do I'm sure it will look great. Cheers, Norman
I desided on spray painting the frame in the end. It's been baking in the oven for an hour and it's rock hard and ready to be assembled which is one of the benefits of oven baking - faster turnaround and an extremely hard surface in a fraction of the time. Mind you, you need to have a half-way decent spraying technique.
I've been fettling most of today on the 315 and the 310. I finished the 310 apart from fitting a mantle and lighting it but I couldn't stop until the 310 was 'finished' to a degree I was happy with and here is the result: I'm pretty sure the collar is as polished as it'll ever be given the state it was in to begin with. If I were to work on it any longer the writing would start to degrade. The paint isn't correct at all but it's difficult to find a match - at least that's what I found. My honest opinion - and this might really annoy some members - is that no-one makes a close match because the original was so bloody awful! I absolutely love lanterns, I collect and fettle them, I light them regularly just because I can but looking back, some of the decisions the manufacturers made were questionable to say the least! Take Bialaddin's standard green paint as an example... what were they thinking? "I say chaps, how about we paint our lanterns in the most dreary, lacklustre, half-hearted green we can come up with? A soul destroying concoction that does its best to be chearful but gives up the idea as a bad job." *** Rant over *** Anyway, I'll fit mantles to this and the 315 tomorrow and see how they perform. Photos to follow.
You did a beautiful job on this old 310! I hope you have luck and find a NOS hood! I love this lantern. The design is really top of the line! I think the 310 just might be my favorite Bialaddin lantern.
The only 'common' model in the Bialaddin/Vapalux range I don't have is the E41 (not that common I know) but they cost serious money! It was nice to fill in the gap!
I better not tell you how many E41s there are in my shed then. Trouble is they are all different so they all have to be retained. ::Neil::
Well done Colin. I have yet to have a Bialaddin cross my doorstep, but they do seem like honest, hard working lanterns, and yours came out great.
I do love my Bialaddin lamps. The build quality is excellent and they pretty much work first time when they've been fettled. With a new set of seals and washers the 310 fired up straight away. My older Tilley's like the 246s are slightly less bullet proof but still good. I like the gradual iteration of design that Willis and Bates went through with each new model - it's intretesting to see their thinking evolve and the choices they made - fascinating!
