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One of the guys who used to work at our place told me a story about these.
When he was a young lad they had one in their outside bog. Now, being a young lad he used to go in there to 'knock one out'.
He told us that in his adult life, when he smelled meths it used to give him a boner.....
 
One of the guys who used to work at our place told me a story about these.
When he was a young lad they had one in their outside bog. Now, being a young lad he used to go in there to 'knock one out'.
He told us that in his adult life, when he smelled meths it used to give him a boner.....
What memories can do for some, eh?
 
Yeh they were brilliant have used one quite a lot. Also camping stove version. Used to have to put a lit circular thing around the flame head to heat it up while pumping away then off you go.
 
There wasn't any pumping on the thing I'm on about just a small cylinder with an infil somewhere to stuff the wadding and Meth Spirit, light the outlet and do some emergency soldering, bloomin kids don't know they are born theses days, lol.
 
Wasn’t it the old paraffin fuelled primus stoves and blow lamps that used meths to get them going?
it was. also i remember meths camping stoves. like a can about 6" diameter with a meths burner ib the bottom. you lit the meths then put your pan (or tin of beans) on top. think they were only a few quid.
 
Meths , Mamod fixed stream engine . Middle class kids ..eh
(Definitely a different memory - Scalded fingers )
And an uncle missing his eyelashes / eye brows from messing with a 3/4 empty stripy glass bottle .
 
The paraffin lamps that you had to pump up are called tilley lamps, I still have one that my mum bought for the power cuts in the early seventies.
 
Meths, Mamod fixed steam engine

Those are connected for me too. I still have mine, complete with the lineshaft driving the hammer, grinder, polisher and press. But meths also goes with fondue, which IMO is a much better use of the burner than heating a tin of beans. For meat fondues we heat electrically these days, but cheese (and chocolate) still best using the ceramic pot and meths burner.

When I was young, my family used to run a speciality restaurant where all hot dishes were cooked at the table. Despite a dozen meths burners on the go, flambés, charcoal-fired hot-pots and whatever, no-one ever managed to set light to anything. The safety rules were strict but friendly and anyone not grown-up enough to be trusted with a meths burner wasn't likely to be tempted by the menu and the prices. It was hard work but great fun, we had some regular customers who would set the whole place buzzing when they were in. A night with a couple of tables booked out to known bon-vivants plus live music was unlikely to wind up before 3am.
 
The paraffin lamps that you had to pump up are called tilley lamps, I still have one that my mum bought for the power cuts in the early seventies.
The one I'm on about was used as a sort of mini blow ;amp carried in Sparky's tool bags for emergency soldering, all the Sparky's had them when I was an Apprentice, nothing like a Tilly lamp at all,
 
remember my dad had a paraffin blowlamp that you had to pump up the pressure. he used it for larger soldering jobs. smaller ones, he has a soldering iron that he heated up in the fire.
blowlamp was just like this one:
Metholated spirit burners 1590749884930 - EletriciansForums.net
 
Wasn’t it the old paraffin fuelled primus stoves and blow lamps that used meths to get them going?
The British Antarctic Survey teams still use them, simple and effective without too much to go wrong when you are in the ice-cold arsend of nowhere. I think they struggle to get spares these days!
 
The British Antarctic Survey teams still use them, simple and effective without too much to go wrong when you are in the ice-cold arsend of nowhere. I think they struggle to get spares these days!
Crikey I was asking about an old fashioned tool that Electricians carried in their tool bags, didn't really expect a History lecture. Vintage "ALTOCK MAJOR AUTOMATIC BLOW LAMP" Google it folks I can't copy the link but use Google or you preferred search Engine
Metholated spirit burners 1590780885755 - EletriciansForums.netMetholated spirit burners 1590780885755 - EletriciansForums.net
 
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I've got one of those, Pete999!
Bit fiddly, but hey...got the job done.
In fact. I'm going to dig it out tomorrow and pop to the pharmacy for some meths....or, maybe not...
[automerge]1590872813[/automerge]
Oh...mine doesn't have the wooden handle or the spreader tube thingy...my Dad used it quite a lot, but I don't think I'll be using it for heat-shrink tubing
 
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My Dad had a paraffin blow lamp. He used to strip old paint off the window frames. He used to send me up the local hardware shop, to get the paraffin.

Metholated spirit burners 1590904800361 - EletriciansForums.net Dum, dum, dum dum Esso Blue.
 
My Dad had a paraffin blow lamp. He used to strip old paint off the window frames. He used to send me up the local hardware shop, to get the paraffin.

View attachment 58532 Dum, dum, dum dum Esso Blue.
how many window panes did he crack?
 

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