petrol blowlamp

Just reading 'Model Engineering' by Henry Greenly and was wondering if anybody has or still does use a petrol blow lamp for firing a boiler?

My own experience with petrol burners was a optimus camping stove and watching our army cooks lighting the huge no.1 petrol burners placed at the end of a trench for cooking on, a cold damp morning produced a low level of petrol vapour that on ignition made us all run. The cooks undaunted proceeded to pump like mad and start their cooking on the resulting flame thrower.

**LINK**

We used to do it a different way, we made a sheet metal box with three holes in the top. The box could be folded flat for transport.

The burner was placed at one end and off you go. Using the three holes for varying rates of cooking like keeping water hot at the far end. The whole assembly in the cold mornings often glowed red.

Cooking for 40 men was a doddle and as cook you get excused all duties in the field. I have seen it set up with a burner at both ends to heat a lot of water quickly so that the lads could pour boiling water through the rifle barrels becase of corrosive primers. The barrels would get too hot to touch, especially the Bren barrels. All rubbish was thrown into the box and incinerated.

heating up chunks of Aluminium for TIG welding was another task. Especially as the Guns had Aluminium hulls (M109's) The hinge blocks would detach themselves from the hull as the hatches were thrown open. They made a roaring noise while burning and had a pricker lever to clear the jet.

Accidents occurred as numbskulls tried to fill while it was burning. Quite dangerous things really.

Clive

When I was a small kid we used to use paraffin blowlamps for burning paint off woodwork prior to repainting. I've still got one somewhere. But I've never used petrol blowlamps.

Andrew

Sounds very dangerous to me..
Bob

My grandfathers petrol blowlamp was the reason I went to LPG, I ws using it one day, and it blew back at the gland on the control knob, I dropped it on my toe, and kicked it out the door. Ian S C

Petrol blowlamps and stoves aren't dangerous, putting petrol in a paraffin stove is. I know.

Cyril

I have petrol blow lamps in two of my model boats one is in a victorian steam launch about 3 feet long with a Reeves V twin oscilating engine and a centre flue boiler and has a good turn of speed. A run time of about 10 to 15 mins the lamp goes out before the water level gets to low.

In this boat I could not get an lpg system to work not enough heat and the small disposalable gas cylinders didnt last very long.

The other is a flash steam powered straight runner with Alan Raymans high speed marine steam engine in it the engine is based on a ST 10 cylinder casting. The boat will plane and does the maximum allowed speed of 12mph I think this may be slower now days. The blow lamp is 1 1/4" diameter and the boiler coil is 15 feet.

Both fuel tanks when in regular use were tested at the local ME club by the boiler tester along with the boiler. Nice and easy to use cheap to run better on leaded petrol the nozzles dont block up yes you can still get it.

Olly

Michael

I think that the system you refer to was known as FIDO - Fog Investigation and Dispersal equipment. It was apparantly effective but used up to 100,000 gal of fuel per hour!!! You can have a search for it - Wikipedia has a few pics but not of the item you mention. I do vaguely recall the item you describe ( from my extreme youth!) and I think that something like this was tried for fog dispersal on a section of bypass near to where I then lived. I don't know that it was all that effective at getting rid of fog but would, I guess, have made a pretty useful ( if frightening!) space heater.

Norman

Michael W - 1963 If I remember right we had one of these in one of the machine shops where I did my apprenticeship. We used the dirty diesel fuel from the cleaning baths to fill it mixed with old engine oil. I was and still am fascinated how the thing got going by chucking a bit of lit oily rag into the hole in the fuel reservoir. I seem to remember that when it was up to speed and generating good heat that it pulsated, a low rumbling warble if you like.

Having been blown up in the science lab at school a few years earlier I would have normally run a mile from such a contraption but no, this beast kept us warm and it only went bang occasionally with emmisions of vast clouds of black smoke when it did.

Now those 'orrid pump up petrol stoves we used for brewing up when I was in the REME in the 60's were a different matter - I didn't mind paying into the tea kitty for my morning brew but you would not get me near one of those things when it was roaring away boiling the kettle.

Cyrils memories of the big petrol burners in field kitchens took me back a bit but strangely, I was never as windy of these as the little tea brewer - nasty little thing.

Rik

I used a Coleman White Gas stove on a 2 month trip across Canada on a motorcycle in 1987. I only ever used petrol, as the motorcycle had a nice sized tank. The stove worked well even when tenting in sub-zeo conditions (Whitehorse in the Yukon on 31 Aug 1987, brr).

However it was safe only if you kept a wary eye on it. Every 4th or 5th use it used to flood & try to immolate itself. A good kick was usually enough to put the flames out.

Regards,

Richard

When I was in Reme (1955/6) we used to pour pariffin into the sand in the fire buckets to brew up on

Printers used to use paraffin in sand to clean their hands

Roy