I have a 25 yr old old fashioned Rothenburger piezo ignition blow lamp that ran on propane cylinders got my ears burnt when I purchased it as it was considered expensive by SWMBO .
It's done me well till a few days ago when I knocked it off the welding bench onto the concrete floor .
It looked OK but would not fire up , yet I could see a tiny spark inside the nozzle . Oh well I'll get a new one using MAPP gas as they burn a lot hotter .
Duly ordered @ £ 89 or so and collected from Screw Fix , I picked a half full gas cylinder off the garage shelf , lo & behold it's a totally different thread ...... Whaaaa!
I didn't realise that when I ordered it . So back to Screw Fix & £42 later I have two ice cold Mapp cylinders in my hands . Pleased to say I didn't have any more full propane cylinders left from the batch of 12 I got years ago .
Late last night I thought I'd strip the old torch down to see what was wrong ..it's a very simple design , The piezo igniter gave a good spark .
I noticed the on off fuel metering spindle was a bit bent . & managed to get it looking straight by using a bit of pipe over the control knob end .
Thinking that might have been the cause of the small spark by not allowing full ignition travel ,reassembled it and was irked to find it still wouldn't push button ignite.
Just as I was about to chuck it in the recycle bin I had a recap think of things .
At first I was puzzled as to why this fault had occurred when everything appeared to have checked out OK . Looking down the nozzle shield I realised that because of it being slightly out of true ,the ignition wire was a a lot further over to one side than it ought to have been . Initially I couldn't fathom out why as it is in a ceramic tube in a brass carrier & it was sparking well .
One final look at it again under a bright light I noticed the outer cowl over the jet/nozzle was very slightly out of position . The spark was arcing out here , rather than 3 mm further up by the gas jet .
A gentle tap with some hard wood saw it go back fully on its seating arrangement .
Gas on . press for spark and it fired up like a new torch .
I'll still keep it & perhaps hand it over to son in law one day .
Now I'm off out to do some serious hot work with my new Mapp torch out in the mancupboard .
It's done me well till a few days ago when I knocked it off the welding bench onto the concrete floor .
It looked OK but would not fire up , yet I could see a tiny spark inside the nozzle . Oh well I'll get a new one using MAPP gas as they burn a lot hotter .
Duly ordered @ £ 89 or so and collected from Screw Fix , I picked a half full gas cylinder off the garage shelf , lo & behold it's a totally different thread ...... Whaaaa!
I didn't realise that when I ordered it . So back to Screw Fix & £42 later I have two ice cold Mapp cylinders in my hands . Pleased to say I didn't have any more full propane cylinders left from the batch of 12 I got years ago .
Late last night I thought I'd strip the old torch down to see what was wrong ..it's a very simple design , The piezo igniter gave a good spark .
I noticed the on off fuel metering spindle was a bit bent . & managed to get it looking straight by using a bit of pipe over the control knob end .
Thinking that might have been the cause of the small spark by not allowing full ignition travel ,reassembled it and was irked to find it still wouldn't push button ignite.
Just as I was about to chuck it in the recycle bin I had a recap think of things .
At first I was puzzled as to why this fault had occurred when everything appeared to have checked out OK . Looking down the nozzle shield I realised that because of it being slightly out of true ,the ignition wire was a a lot further over to one side than it ought to have been . Initially I couldn't fathom out why as it is in a ceramic tube in a brass carrier & it was sparking well .
One final look at it again under a bright light I noticed the outer cowl over the jet/nozzle was very slightly out of position . The spark was arcing out here , rather than 3 mm further up by the gas jet .
A gentle tap with some hard wood saw it go back fully on its seating arrangement .
Gas on . press for spark and it fired up like a new torch .
I'll still keep it & perhaps hand it over to son in law one day .
Now I'm off out to do some serious hot work with my new Mapp torch out in the mancupboard .
I thought all of their torches had the same thread on them.
