1944 Coleman 220BX Lantern Restoration: Part One

[@outdoorseyfun9842]

Beautiful job beautiful lantern

[@Enjoymentboy]

Whenever I repaint founts I use a technique I learned many years ago. With the fount suspended the same way you have here I twist it in circles many times so that when I release it the fount will spin slowly. This allows me to keep spraying constantly and I only have to move the can from the bottom towards the top to get fully even coverage. It also prevents me from having to walk around it at all as every face will just turn right in front of me automatically.

[@king.coleman]

I find the fount spins like that naturally when I first hang it up. I have not found it conducive to painting and always wait for it to stop. Of course, once paint starts hitting it, it'll start to spin a little.

[@65BusDuo]

Just got my first BX in a lot of 7 lanterns......was going to keep it patina, but your great video has inspired me to redo it....Thanks for all the great content.

[@cutlersantiques6700]

Very nice, it looks great! I just bought a 1941 228B with a brass fount, it should be delivered next Tuesday and I'm hoping the original globe survives the shipping, I will eventually have a light up video of it on my channel. Keep up the good work!

[@w.rustylane5650]

i restored a 220-BX not long ago. I used electrolysis to remove rust and paint on the fount. I repainted it with a coat of etching primer, then a top coat of matched car paint to Coleman green. I've repainted a 425NL with the same paint using my airbrush. Both came out great. I'll probably wax it next year making sure the paint is set and dry. W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee

[@poohbahn]

Excellent Job Thanks 👍

[@fakenews7266]

I have one of these about as nice as yours , mine is un-restored , all I had to do was to hose it off , oil the pump cup and put on 2 new silk-lites . Nice lantern 👍

[@kenneth6731]

Excellent work, thank you for sharing!

[@kellycooleyCPS]

Great video! Too bad about the first coat of painting not getting recorded! I've not yet attempted a strip and repaint, but am emboldened by this. I have a couple of old lamps that were inexplicably painted black (everything, fount right to the finial) that I thought I'd strip. I have several questions! 1. You mentioned the expense / lack of availability of effective paint strippers - can you elaborate on what is no longer available / too expensive? 2. I note your cupped steel brush used to strip the fount was itself steel - would the use of a brass cupped brush reduce the amount of scratching to the fount's steel, making the subsequent two stage hand sanding less necessary, or would a brass brush not be up to the task of stripping? 3. It looks like your hanging setup for painting is at the centre of your shop area about 4 feet off the ground - do you use a light underneath to illuminate the bottom of the fount so you can adequately see to properly paint it without any misses? 4. Was one can of paint adequate for both coats? 5. Do you source this paint locally, or do you have to obtain it stateside? Thanks again for taking the time to outline your restoration of this lantern so completely! I have a 220C from '46 but have never seen a BX in the wild. Cheers!

[@king.coleman]

1. Most paint strippers used to rely on Methylene Chloride, which has been banned from consumer use in the US. You can still get it in Canada, but it's hard to find and obscenely expensive. 2. I haven't tried a brass brush in this way, but I've used brass brushes for removing paint by hand and they wear out *very* quickly. I don't think a brass brush would last very long at higher speeds. In this case the abrasiveness was a positive because it removed a lot of rust from the fount. I would have had to sand the fount by hand anyway. 3. It's hanging from my garage door opener in the middle of my garage. I've got some awesome LED lights in the garage, so haven't found a need to specifically light the bottom. 4. One can typically covers two founts and I can often get three out of one can if I'm not wasteful. 5. I usually buy spraypaint locally at Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Home Hardware, etc. Some colour matching requires more specialised paint, but so far I've usually found a match with Duplicolor, sold in well-stocked auto parts stores. I do have an upcoming project restoring a JC Higgins lantern and stove for which I was unable to find a match in Canada, but VHT makes a good match and I was able to find it on my last trip to the States. That said, paint is quite a bit cheaper in the States, so I've been known to buy some cans when I'm down there.

[@kellycooleyCPS]

@@king.coleman thanks for the detailed reply!

[@chrisssmallengines7163]

Nice job , do you find that the paint is less prone to chipping without priming first ? . Or do you find you get a better finish when not using primer ? .

[@king.coleman]

It depends on the paint. If it's a primer+colour in one I've found it's very easy to get a nice end result by avoiding primer. I can get the same results using primer, but it seems to require more care and more work. Sometimes a project requires primer. I just repainted a steel AGM fount that had a lot of surface rust and needed a couple coats of primer to get it smooth. It came out looking great, but required a lot of sanding and quite a few thin coats of the colour coat.

[@The762x39mm]

I am restoring a milspecs AFM 252 and i was wondering if every citric acid are same or some kind or brand clean better? Food grade citric acid is what you use? Thankyou!

[@king.coleman]

Citric acid is citric acid. It should all be "food grade". The only reason I can think that it wouldn't be is if it's processed in a facility that introduces some kind of impurities. When it comes to citric acid powder, for our purposes it shouldn't make a difference. I've never seen citric acid for sale as a solution. That would be different, because you'd want to know what percentage the solution is to know how to use it.

[@The762x39mm]

@@king.coleman Thankyou! I was wondering because somes brand are cheaper than others for same quantity. How many tea spoon per litre of water for a strong cleaning solution?

[@king.coleman]

Strong is relative. I've always found 1 tsp per litre of water sufficient. On really rusty steel could double that, but my preference is simply to give it a scrub and then put it back into the citric acid and then to repeat that as many times as necessary.