Hi all, Found this 300X on eBay and couldn’t resist for my second major fettle. The original paintwork was pretty shabby so decided to strip the paint and start again. However, on stripping the font I discovered a hairline crack running from the lip of the base halfway up towards the filler cap and a pressure test showed fuel seepage through the crack. Thought about buying a donor lamp to replace the tank but decided in the spirit of restoration to try my hand at soldering. Treat myself to a Dremel butane torch and watched a few videos on silver soldering. Opened up the crack a little going past the end of the visible crack and started soldering. Safe to say it was a fairly ropey first attempt and in the beginning a lot of the solder, somehow managed to miss the target entirely and ended up on the floor. Got to grips with the temperature and method a little and managed something vaguely tidy which then more importantly passed a pressure test. I filled the remaining indentation with body filler and sanded it back to what I thought was smooth (very slight tell tale marks though even after painting). Not being a purist for now at least, I made a couple of design choices. The first being that even being fairly colourblind I didn’t like the clash of reds between the original font and hood colours so I went for a replacement brass top instead. Though I still have the original red one so it can be put back if needed. I also decided to leave the frame bare as the Bialaddin lettering was too nice to cover up again. The red was an Extreme Auto Crimson Red which in some lights is a decent match to the original and in other lights seems a shade or two too light and ironically would now probably match the original red hood top. Happy with how it came out after three coats of primer, three coats of the crimson and then three coats of an xht lacquer which I couldn’t bake as I still don’t have access to an oven suitable. I did leave it to cure for a fortnight though before reassembly. I was a bit worried about spraying in the cold below recommended temperatures so utilised a couple of other lamps to warm things up a little! Full clean of the components in a vinegar bath and then polished up with the Dremel and finished with Autosol. Re-assembled and then realised it still had it’s original half brass half nickel filler cap that had been painted originally but now just looked odd so swapped it for an all brass cap. Very shiny finish for now but I’ve left all the brass bare so it will settle down soon enough. Really happy with how it turned out for what is only my second major fettle. She’s been glowing beautifully for an hour now!
Well saved! When a tank has stress cracked once, it's likely that it will do so again, so my advice is to watch for seepage.
Looks marvelous! I might have been tempted to clean the original enamel cap and use that as it looked to be in pretty good shape.
Thanks Colin, reckon there’s a good chance the red cap makes a reappearance once the new brass look has faded. Does match better than before given the font came out lighter than expected.
You've done a excellent job all round and now have a stunning lamp, have to agree with @ColinG regarding the hood but I'd still be happy with it either way.
Just saw this post. Great restoration there. It’s amazing how deeply satisfying an old lamp fettling project can be. I guess it’s the same as a classic car restoration but for a fraction of the cost! No wonder the hobby is addictive. Well done Sir.
Thanks Alex, reckon it will be scarily quickly how I surpass the cost of a classic car with this hobby. I’m barely a few months in and have already had lamps shipped from Spain and the US! Need to slow down a bit, which may happen when I can go places other than the garage after the lockdowns!!
