My Tilly Lamp Drama - pic

And another thing...

I have made a collapsible steel tripod that can be used to boil water in a saucepan if the base of the saucepan is kept 1/4" above the cowl, which gets very hot, sometimes up to red hot.:D

They are marvellous beasts these Tilleys, they really are.

I have also made an anti insect guard which fits just under the glass out of a perforated sink drainer, now there's a project for you...:D
 
I've got a petrol camping stove like that...
I've also got a petrol Primus and a petrol blowlamp, inherited from my Dad.
Apparently standard issue when he went camping with some friends in the Libyan desert. Petrol was often the only fuel available.
I've been too scared to try lighting them.:eek:
 
About 15 years less than me, then :D Lighting it inside a shed is perhaps the optimum location, outside in a breezy field you might have less success.

Very true, but I have lit tilleys north of the arctic circle, and in winds from the calm to the ferocious.
You will note the temperature test during the preheating process, if this is accompanied by the smell of burning flesh it is safe to hit the pressure pump.:-)
 
observe the roll of kitchen paper, the big botle of meths, the small glass jar of meths and the meths covered rags

what could possibly go wrong

D

PS this is outside the back door of my thatched house

Well it can get a lot worse.
Imagine if you will a Severt Parafin blowlamp-same preheat and pressurise principal except if you try to pressurise it too soon it flame throws a fine jet of burning parafin about 5 foot in length.
Add to this luckily a new concrete floor and a kitchen stripped to bare brick work not forgetting the old style metal one gallon oil tin full of petrol which I had been using to preheat the blow torch.
I was in my twenties and this was over three decades ago but suffice to say the torch flame throwed;ignited spilt petrol on top of the tin which I proceeded to put outside the back door where it exploded;setting the outside of the old sturdy thick tongue and groove back door alight and removing the newly installed plastic guttering whilst sending a fireball skywards.
My neighbour did note that my ex was more worried about the two cats and her violin than she was about me!
 
My first memory of a Tilley lamp:-
Being tucked up in bed in our caravan sometime in the early 1950s pre my brother so perhaps 2 years old.
The memory sticks because it was raining and wet and the hissing of the light at the far end of the caravan comforting.
The Caravan itself was an early 30s canvas roofed teardrop about 12 foot long! which was kept on a permanent site near Arnside(Newbarns)-it made its last road journey to Bradford in 1961 where my Dad sold it to a builder for a few pounds!
 
Being a total Tilley nut with more lamps and bits that I care to mention may i just say twiddling the knob does in fact provide a service by way of cleaning the jet in the vaporiser. I have lamps dating back to the early 1930s and although found in barns ect a quick twiddle, and as an earlier post said a small amount of lubricant on the pump washer and away they go. Outstanding bits of kit.
 
Top