Optimus No 9

Another little update, the leather cup and rubber seals arrived yesterday and I had a spare hour or so this afternoon so I set about rebuilding the primer pump.
It turned out to bit of a challenge getting the new cup into the cylinder, even after soaking all night in olive oil, but I won in the end.
Next was to pressure test the fuel tank, so I corked up the fuel outlet and gave it fifty pumps and immersed the whole thing in a bucket of water, please to report that there were no air leaks.
Zinc anodes arrived today, now waiting for the nickel anodes and the plating test fluid to arrive.

 

Apologies for not replying sooner, I encountered problems receiving the nickel testing kit that I ordered 3 weeks ago, lots of emails back and forth to the seller and in the end it eventually turned up.
So the results of testing are as follows.

The bracket that joins the fuel tank to the clam shells is indeed nickel plated, as is the heat shield that mounts under the burner.
I thought all along that they were nickel plated but as it was suggested they were more likely to be galvanised/zinc i needed to clarify that they were not zinc.

It has also been suggested that the shiny finish on the fuel tank/clam shells and probably the end cap (although I don’t have an end cap) are polished nickel plate, I can also now confirm that these parts are actually a chrome plated finish and not nickel plated, again something I thought all along and mentioned in a previous post, that’s not to say nickel isn’t present because it is, these parts have been chrome plated over nickel.

So I hope you find this information useful, I’m pleased I can now resume my restoration of the stove, I will add some photos of the nickel plating process once I finish the preparation of the parts to be plated and assemble all the stuff required to do it.

 

Hi, thank you very much to take time to make these tests and share with us these useful information!

Nicola

 

Your approach to restoration is admirable. Your thorough analysis, meticulous examination of every component prove that this rare stove has come into good hands.
I will be watching this thread closely
Greetings
Stanisław

 

I have just spent a couple of hours doing more prep work on the parts that are to be nickel plated, the heat shield under the burner is in quite a bad way, 84 years of tin worm has really eaten into the metal and I need a near perfect flat polished surface for successful perfect plating, unfortunately i am unable to polish out all of the scares left from the 84 years of oxidisation, if i were to keep on polishing not only am I removing good metal it is also getting thinner, sometimes you can only do the best you can with what you have, there’s not a doubt in my mind that it needs re-plating as this is the only way to stop the continued oxidation, if I left it as it was for another 84 years it would be rusted scrap, I know after plating the scares will still be visible as the nickel plate is only about 18 microns thick, but like I say sometimes in restoration you just can’t quite get what you want, especially if you want to keep it as near to original as possible.
The last photo is 15x magnification.

 

Quick update on the No9 refurb.
I had fun making some nickel electrolyte and had some good results plating some small test pieces in a glass jar, but then is was time to scale up the operation as the parts to be plated needed a much bigger container and I needed much more electrolyte.
Unfortunately after many attempts at plating larger test items and one go at the bracket using different techniques and changing voltage/amps and even agitation of the electrolyte, I have come to the conclusion that plating large items is going to be best left to the professionals.
So the two items have now safely arrived at the metal finishers for nickel plating, turn around time 3 to 4 weeks so as soon as they arrive back to me I’ll post up some photos.
If you every fancy having a go a nickel plating yourself I suggest you have a go, it’s really good fun making the electrolyte and as long as your doing small items like knobs and such like you’ll get good results.
I used 12v DC at 5amp to make the electrolyte and best results came with 1.8v DC at 800ma to do the plating, with excellent results on small items.
Photo is of the larger set up, I forgot to take photos of the small glass jar set up as I was to excited to scale things up.

 

There has been a lot of talk about nickel plating recently on here.

You're spot on about the lower voltage produceing best results.

In the photos you only seem to be using one anode for the bracket- as electroplating is mostly a line-of sight process, did you move the bracket during plating?

 

Hi Ben
Yes mate I kept moving the bracket round and also tried using more than one anode and at one point I even rigged up a small aquarium fish tank pump to circulate the electrolyte, don’t get me wrong I did manage to plate the bracket but not to a standard I was happy with, as I say little objects plate fine but as the size increase so does the complexity of the plating process, great fun though.

 

Hi everyone,
Just a quick update to say I’m still waiting for the two items to come back from the platers, I contacted them yesterday to ask why the delay and was told they will be done soon.
I hate having to rely on other people to get things done.

 

Just received and paid the invoice for the nickel plating, it’s now in the post and should be arriving tomorrow.

 

In case anyone is still here and following my restoration of the No9 I have an update, apologies for the delay but I’ve been waiting for the parts to come back from the metal finishers.
They arrived back today and are far better than I was expecting, there is some pitting still visible on the heat shield but I knew this would be the case.
The plating finish is “Satin Nickel” and look fabulous, cost of this service was £148.00 and to me worth every penny.
Over the next few weeks I will start to reassembled the stove and get to fire it up, make my cup of tea and post a photo of the flame shot everyone seems to want.
After this I am going to see about fabricating and end cap and getting this plated.

 

I have been following with interest.

 

A truly uinque result will eventuate. Most interesting posts....

 

Exciting news coming your way, I had a couple of hours spare this afternoon so decided to start reassembling the No9

Had a little fuel leak but a quick tweak sorted that out.
After getting some tank pressure and pre heating the burner with some meths it was time to see what would happen when I opened the fuel valve and introduced a light, disappointingly not a lot happened, apart from a jet of burning paraffin, so I decided to go for a second session of pre heating the burner with meths, only this time I filled the reservoir to the tip top, previously I didn’t fill it right up.
Tried a second time to light the burner and hey presto with a cough and a splutter it fired up, I kept it going on low to get more heat into the burner and also pumped more pressure into the fuel tank.
Had it running like this for about 10 minutes before deciding to shut it down and give everything a final check back on the workbench.

I decided to remove the burner and re clean the main jet and give the whole thing another good blow through with compressed air before replacing.
Filled the fuel tank to 3/4 full this time round, pressurised the fuel tank and done one good full pre heat with meths and it fired up straight away, ran it for a couple of minutes to get some good heat into the burner and then open her up flat out, success all round, she’s purring away and burning lovely.
I had it roaring away like this for about 30 minutes boiling a few saucepans of water with no trouble at all.

You may of noticed I done the lighting up outside, not ideal as it was a bit windy but i wanted to keep the possible burning down of my workshop to a minimum had it all gone off with a big bang and flames flying everywhere,
I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to fill it with petrol/Gasoline to see what it burns like as that could potentially be a very serious bang if anything let go.

The more I discover about this stove the more I like it, it is a stunningly beautiful design indeed, just a shame it has serious design faults with dire consequences.

Next on the agenda is to buy a small bench mounted sheet metal roller to have a go at rolling a replacement end cap and get my friend who’s a wizard at tig welding to tig weld it up, perhaps use a thicker piece of brass for the end so I can chamfer the edge off better.

I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

 

Very wise to do the initial test outdoors!

Great to see it in action at last, it looks to be performing strongly.

Seeing it in use it is striking how flimsy it appears compared with the rock solid contemporary designs. Looking at it open and in action, from the perspective of somebody making meals in rugged terrain, I'd certainly be worried that one big knock, or tripping over it, would prevent it ever folding up again. The control spindle/knob arrangement flapping unguided doesn't help either.

I wonder if this would have acted against this design had the war and/or crack issues had not caused its premature demise.

Still a wonderfully inventive design though, an important part of the evolution of lightweight multifuel stoves.

 

Splendid.
Stove fettle of the year.

 

Excellent restoration/fettle of a rare piece of history.

 

Nice work and process, thank you for sharing and congratulations on getting it fired up again.
Duane

 

No shit, maybe the decade.

Ben

 

Exactly.