Fuel tank painted steel for the civilian market, with this instruction on the tank on how to prevent internal rust. Also … The customary Monitor red disc decal appears to be an earlier pattern … … before it was developed to resemble a wax seal, carrying ‘The Seal of Safety & Efficiency’ slogan. Tank is stamped ‘Monitor’ and ‘British Made’ Paint finish is obviously original (the decals have not been masked off for a re-paint) but was roughly applied, having pooled on the surface of the base and wrinkled on drying. Presumably any compaint was met with “There’s a war on, you know!” The steel underneath is evident where paint has flaked off. The inside of the tank is pristine and I would judge the stove has had little use, maybe just a test firing at the factory even. Little use, and in its original box … … together with a couple of prickers and an instruction card, headed Please hang this up A spares list is on the reverse, with a dire warning that the use of non-genuine Monitor spares has ‘ruined’ many stoves. The ‘Size 5 - 1 - 4’ nomenclature is that of the pre-war period such as my Monitor No.5 from the 1930’s, before the post-war naming of ‘C15/C11’ was adopted. A printing date of June 1943 is consistent with the stove being of wartime production. The lighting torch is of an unusual pattern … … protruding through the burner skirt … and having no securing clip as the usual pattern (top) does. That too could be a wartime economy measure, with no clip to manufacture and not requiring the process of putting a crimp in the tube to secure the clip to it. No clip, no crimp, but effective. The tank filler cap incorporating a safety release valve is of a familiar pattern. Not this Monitor’s here, but another example dismantled to show the mechanism. A likely economy measure was incorporated in the cap nevertheless, a synthetic rubber seal … … more like plastic than rubber and not dissimilar to the composition (and colour!) of an item of Bandalasta tableware of the pre-war period. A final detail, the NRV has a broader width head, requiring the NRV key on the right rather than the Primus key on the left. Given that it’s not unfired (however briefly) I’ll be test firing the stove at the next possible opportunity. It won’t be put into regular use however - it would be a pity to damage the paintwork or those decals - and I’ll be sure to empty out the paraffin afterwards as the instruction advises! John
Excellent, I wonder if these were available to the public on the open market, or restricted to community organisations, hospital use, etc? It's hard to tell whether the paint has been applied by brush, spray or dipping!
@Blackdog A very good question you raise there, on a niche aspect of WWII history. There’s certainly good reason to suppose you’re right, endorsed perhaps by the instruction labels on the stove itself. A private user may be expected to retain the printed sheet (‘Please hang this up’) but a stove used by a number of users as a communal resource is likely to part company with those instructions yet having sight of them is safety critical (paraffin and not petrol) or critical to get a usable flame - and extinguish it! That principle - to cater for multiple users - was of course in common with military-issue stoves of the period and still holds true to this day, such as the user instructions on a British military No.12. CCS member collections are evidence that an abundance of pre-WWII camp stoves survived the conflict (and the scrap metal collections ‘for victory’) and those and pre-war stocks still available from ironmongers during the war could probably have satisfied civilian demand for a stove to cook and brew up on in the Anderson shelter. Those community organisations and citizen support networks formed on the outbreak of war could indeed have been the target customers as a source of extra demand however. The paint job? Spray I think. Plenty of evidence of ‘orange peel’ spray finish, which I recall is down to poor application - things like too low air pressure, wrong nozzle, thinners evaporating too quickly. Overspray too in the pump tube.
Aha, yes that photo of the orange peel confirms it! Gun close, air pressure low, applied to thickly... Less messy overspray and less paint wastage overall at the expense of good finish. I can just imagine the Foreman's instruction "Lay it on good and quick, Sid!" I have often pondered on the household uptake of pressure stoves during the Second World War. In the countryside, firewood became much more heavily used for heating and cooking. Coal was rationed, but so was paraffin during and after the war, so switching to a pressure stove may or may not have been advantageous for those in towns and cities, many of whom would still be using paraffin for lighting and to some extent heating anyway. A great deal of the paraffin which survived the U-boats went into the tanks of the (mostly Fordson 'N') tractors, and later in the war mixed to make TVO for the more advanced American tractors arriving under the lend-lease scheme, to keep the nation fed.
Good evening @presscall excellent score John and a brilliant documented and pictured post. I have come across quite a few blowlamps at car boot sales years ago mad from war time substitute material, in fact i do own a one gallon Monitor brazing lamp, which is military issue with the arrow, but not often i have seen with the paint work and all the warning/instruction decals all intact like yours. My Monitor if memory serves me right had very little paint and i had to repaint it with the military paint. here is a link of mine on youtube
A while ago we sold off some of the larger blowlamps accumulated from job lots from farm sales etc. One was this, (maker unknown, SH&S?) similar to yours @mr optimus, with painted steel tank. It had been repainted a slightly darker green, the original paint underneath looked very similar to the Monitor stove in question. It also had a similar 'War Finish' warning on the tank- see second photo. Tin can for scale! While the ebay listing was running, a gentleman contacted me asking if he could use the photos in an article he was compiling on the history of brazing, for 'Model Engineer' magazine. I sent him further photos of better resolution, although I don't know if the article was published or not. Now I can't find the original photos, which showed the label better!
@presscall I bow to the worthy John - yet again a well-documented and curious approach to learn even more about every stove, which you take under your scrutiny. I’ve learned at lot from you and many others here at CCS. Thank you!
Since posting details of the stove I’ve acquired the equivalent Monitor paraffin blowlamp with a green painted steel tank and the warning label to empty it weekly to prevent rust. The Monitor decal is of the more familiar ‘wax seal’ format. The fuel filler cap seal is made of the same peculiar substance the stove’s cap seal was. There’s an asbestos-filled metal chute that serves as a priming aid.
Interesting! I've always found the usual blowlamp arrangement of a dish formed in the tank top to be somewhat lacking, since the flame completely misses most of the burner. This component looks ideal, and neater than my usual method of shoving a Tilley lamp torch in that very gap.
@Blackdog I’ve not seen a blowlamp with that device on before either. Now, every other example on ebay has one. It works pretty well. Tank pressurised, burner lit …
