2 odd items?

Hi All,

Todays haul included these two odd items, a bit out of my tool comfort zone, any info would be appreciated.

First is I think some form of heater, possibly for under a car bonnet, maker is BLADON who did blowlamps etc.

The next item I think is possibly from a motorcycle but no idea what!

Any ideas please?

Cheers, Martin

Hi the Speed Twin badge is from a triumph 500cc speed Twin of early 60s vintage, the other thing aint got a clue

Side panel badge of a Triumph speed twin

Thanks guys, would have had no idea how to find that out with certainty. Martin

The other item is a parafin heater

for a greenhouse

Only 10" tall by 3" base , bit small for a greenhouse?

M

Plenty of Bladdon's Sentinel heaters on Google

Thanks Jason, for some reasonI could not find anything first time around? Cheers, Martin

I did wonder if it was an early safety lamp, possibly later sold as a heater.

The first ones ware all gauze rather than glass, as normally seen in the later miner's lamps.

It's only an anti-frost heater, just to stop freezing. EG hang one up in the outside lavatory to stop the cistern freezing (the Mk 2 outside loo with plumbing!)

According to the Science Museum the heater is most likely a safety heater or lamp patented by W.E. Bladon and G.R. Neale, Jan. 26.1927. As it is in their road transport category, it seems it was for preventing vehicle radiators from freezing. I recall that in the 1950s the consequence of freezing was much feared - a burst radiator or even a cracked cylinder block. My dad had a little paraffin heater he placed under the car at night in winter. He daren't use anti-freeze, because it was a solvent for Radweld, which held the radiator of our 1937 Austin 7 together. Several people we knew at the time used to drain the cooling system of their ancient cars every evening, and refill it in the morning.

My neighbour used to use the heater in his Foden wagon in winter. No heaters in those days ( early 50s )

Roy

Another vote for loo or vehicle cab. Pretty sure an older aunt and uncle hung one in their outside loo during the winter but thats going back around 55 years to primary school days so both memory and appreciation of what I was seeing may be less than reliable.

The under car version dad had (maybe I still have) was much lower and larger diameter. Maybe 4 or 5 inches high and approaching a foot diameter.

Clive.

Yes, it's an under-bonnet heater for a car. We had one at home when I was little. We also had a mains electric heater whose trade name, if I remember correctly, was 'Peter the Heater', though that relied on having a mains supply available in the garage. Those without heaters had to drain down the engine and radiator at night and refill it with hot water from the kettle in the morning.

Dad told me that when the idea of antifreeze spread after the war, it was said that methanol was very effective. So it was, in the ordinary way of things. However, we lived on the hill at Odd Down on one side of Bath, and he worked on the hill at Lansdown on the opposite side. The only way from one to the other was right down into the valley and up the other side.

Our Morris 12, like most pre-war cars, had no thermostat or water pump and relied on thermo-siphon for circulation. It had a radiator muff to prevent the cold air from freezing the water in the radiator while it was still cold. (which gave the surprising effect that the engine boiled because there was no circulation). If you forgot to stop and roll up the opening panels in the muff when the engine got hot, it boiled anyway...

Dad was keen to try antifreeze because it did away with heaters, muff, stopping and all that palaver. On the first morning all was well until Dad was about three quarters of the way up Lansdown and the coolant reached the boiling point of methanol. There was a gurt belch of fumes, and no more antifreeze. After this happened at the same spot for the third morning, Dad gave up and went back to Peter the Heater until ethylene glycol based antifreeze became available some years later.

Our 1950 Morris Oxford (the one which looks like an over-inflated Minor) had a radiator blind fitted inside the radiator grille, with a cord arrangement to pull it up and down from inside the car. Luxury indeed for the driver.

You young 'uns don't know you're born, etc.

George

I don't go as far back as some of you, but when I was a callow youth of 17 in 1977 I had a Triumph 1300 FWD which I neglected to put anti freeze in. I drove it some distance one evening when it started making rattles and clonks and eventually limped to a halt. On investigation the engine had indeed frozen up and blown the core plugs and the really was ice as in frozen running water down the engine block. Just shows what the airflow does to drop the temp further as it wasn't that cold and you'd think the engine would generate enough heat.

Somewhat surpisingly I let it defrost and acquired some new core plugs banged them in with a ball pein hammer and of she went again with no problems.

But I did recognise the Triumph badge because I had a Triumph Trophy 650 which I had a lot of difficulty selling as no interest. Wish I had kept it now but needed the dosh to buy the 1300.

Alan

Norfolk Boy, you had the posh one - I had the 1300 Triumph Toledo, which was a conventional rear wheel drive. I thought I was a hell of a guy because it was the first new car I bought which cost more than £1,000! Drove it from my home in Lincolnshire to Trieste on one hideously hot weekend, and I lost count of the time it boiled. Got talking to an English bloke I met, and he suggested stopping over a gutter and draining out the anti-freeze and refilling with plain water. End of trouble because, apparently (he said), plain water conducts heat better than water/antifreeze mixture.

I recall two years in Africa in the early 1960s, where British cars were sometimes a joke because they were always boiling because of too-small radiators - a problem not found with American cars. I suppose that when Americans bought a car they expected it to work anywhere between Alaska and Mexico. The get-you-home trick with British cars was to strip down to your shorts, open all the windows, and turn the heater on full blast.

The second pic is part of a Bladon's Sentinal anti frost heater for placing under a car. the main missing part is a funnel shaped piece with wire mesh on the top that sits over the wick holder, there should be an adjuster thingy for the wick.

Ian S C

I've suspected one key reason for the poor design of some of our former domestic brands was our relatively moderate climate. We rarely see much below zero or much above the mid twenties. Many continental European countries (and North America) see proper cold winters and seriously hot summers. I suspect many of the British engineers responsible had little knowledge or experience of the conditions beyond our shores.

Murray

I think I read somewhere that the way the Nominal Horse Power of a car was calculated for tax reasons in the UK encouraged British designers to get capacity using long narrow cylinders rather than short fat ones. Trouble is that long spindly con-rods are more likely to break and they beat up the crankshaft and bearings as well. Such engines are less reliable than stubby designs.

It gets worse. Being very unwilling to invest in new engines, British makers carried on churning out flawed engines long after the original tax reason was abolished. As US engine design was never constrained in the same way, their car engines had sensible geometry, and were reliable.

British aero-engines avoided the trap because they weren't taxed in the same way. They have always been world class.

Does anyone know if this is true? I've no idea what my source was.

Dave