Paraffin Burner

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jcreasey

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I recently purchased this lovely little paraffin burner on EBay. I was a bit surprised that the tank for it does not contain a pump of any kind. It does contain a non-return valve with a nipple which looks suspiciously like an old style bike valve.

I suspect that I will need to make a little pump to pressurise it, much like a little boiler feed pump. I'm also not sure about the pre-heat side of things. I was expecting a little dish or something where I could pre-heat it with methylated spirits. There is no provision at all for pre-heating. I could put a little tray of meths under it but I'm not sure how well that would work as there are no holes to allow the heat to transfer into the pre-heat coil.

If anyone has any experience with this kind of burner I would be very interested. I believe it was made by a man called Peter Aitkin. As far as I know it has never been used.

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FWIW I suspect that this is a petrol/gasoline burner and not a paraffin/kerosene one.

However, I would be loathe to put it to use and have it, as you are doing at the moment, as a talking point.

Regards

Norman
 
FWIW I suspect that this is a petrol/gasoline burner and not a paraffin/kerosene one.

However, I would be loathe to put it to use and have it, as you are doing at the moment, as a talking point.

Regards

Norman

It was sold as a paraffin burner. It looks just like a blowtorch with the pre-heater coil in the path of the flame. I think it would probably be quite dangerous to use it with petrol.
 
I'm confused as you stated initially that there was no provision for preheating, now you say that there is.
If there is a pre-heater, then I wouldn't use petrol in any circumstances.

Musing somewhat to when I was 14-ish ( 1944), I did build a paraffin pre-heating coil into an experimental ramjet. It was a design by a Corporal Henwood in Aeromodeller.
Quite exciting, if I recall but then I was a wartime teenager!
 
I'm confused as you stated initially that there was no provision for preheating, now you say that there is.
If there is a pre-heater, then I wouldn't use petrol in any circumstances.

Musing somewhat to when I was 14-ish ( 1944), I did build a paraffin pre-heating coil into an experimental ramjet. It was a design by a Corporal Henwood in Aeromodeller.
Quite exciting, if I recall but then I was a wartime teenager!

On a normal blowlamp there is a dish which is filled with methylated spirits. This is used to warm the pre-heating coil which is in front of the jet. Once the lamp is running the heat of the jet keeps this pre-heating coil warm.

On my little burner there is no provision for any kind of metho warming arrangement to get thing hot before the burner is running.
 

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