Hi stovies, this Primus spirit can was generously given to me for my Primus210 by teletim. Like so many of these spirit cans it has rusted from the inside and there are rust holes as you can see on the top and there are a few pin holes on the bottom, but luckily the edges and the body itself is sound, so rather than have it for a decoration purpose, I decided to treat the rust and repair/restore it to the purpose it is intended. And to show the way the task was carried out The first job was to clean and remove surface rust as this is vital for any soldering/tinning to be successful and as you can see in the above pic it has been cleaned and rubbed down with fine wet and dry a small wire brush was used as well. You will notice that the holes have become somewhat bigger once this very important part of repair was carried out. The stem where the filler cap is screwed on, a split appeared where it is joined to the top of the tin. The above pic shows the bottom of the can has been tinned this was achieved by once cleaning thoroughly and then fluxing with a blowlamp. Melted a blob of plumbers metal on the bottom of the tin. It then set and then melted the plumbers metal. Placing the flame of the lamp on the center of the plumbers metal so it melted and heated the metal, it was to tin then wiped the excess with a clean cotton rag smeared with flux. The same procedure was carried out with the top of the can. The next stage was to solder a piece of 1.5mm of wire around the brass threaded stem as this was to cover the split around it. It is joined to the brass stem and to the cleaned and sound part of the metal so the brass plate could be joined too as it would never stick to where the split was. The next part was to cut a brass liner for the bottom and top so it would cover and seal over the rust holes this was made from a piece of brass plate 0.3mm in thickness this was also tinned so it could be sweat-ed on the bottom and top of the can. This was done the same way as the can only instead of wiping the access with a fluxed cotton rag, I let it set. When it cooled down leaving it coated with about 1mm or two of solder it was then placed vertically against metal block and heated so all the excess ran off so the brass was perfectly tinned. This was then fluxed and all so the the parts of the can it was to be joined to it was then placed and then sweat-ed on to the can this was done with the gas fired micro torch as the above pic shows. The pic above shows the can finished. It has been tinned to cover the brass so it looks like it was originally. Around the brass stem and the edge it was re-soldered so it was all sealed. This was done with an old fashioned soldering iron heated with my Optimus406 half pint blowlamp. This method allowed all edges to be soldered slowly without loosening the brass liner plates. It has been checked for leeks and is now water tight. I am quite satisfied with the work, even though it is not 100% perfect-looking, but can be used again and saved.
Yet another fine bit of work Brian, nice to see it in a fully usable condition. I need to learn how to do this? Cheers Tim
Many thanks Tim for your feedback. You will easily manage it Tim, the only thing is that it has to be rust free and really clean.
Thanks for doing this Brian. I've got 3 of them in need of this treatment. I was thinking of trying the same thing. Well, I'm up off my butt now!!!
Many thanks Richard and matt for your great feed back and good luck Matt it could be the best way to restore these spirit cans
Wow, that was a nice fix. I know a guy with a Primus 96 that has a spirit bottle with the same problem. This will be great. Thanks! sam
Hi Ken sorry for the delay in responding to you, i did this restoration quite a while back, most of the work was done with a soldering iron, which is a more gentle and slower process than a naked flame, so there was very little damage to the decal.
mr optimus I have one of those. Will take a look at my cans again. Sam, I may have gotten that 96. Thank you very much. Ken in NC
