Recommendations when choosing Soda Chargers capsules canisters for vintage antique Sparklets syphons

Several of our customers and other people have contacted requesting advice about which manufacturers of currently available 8 gram size carbon dioxide charger cartridges/capsules actually fit and work with their vintage, classic and antique Sparklets soda syphons, although this advice is also probably applicable to other makes and brands of syphons from around the same period, such as Aerators, Heimsyphon and Soda King of America.
This advice is mainly based on our experience of reconditioning principally Sparklets brand syphons from Britain, mainland Europe and America. However, it also appears to apply to some other older models from brands such as Rostex, Heimsyphon, NTG of Japan and some syphons originally manufactured in central or eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Based on our experience we strongly recommend that users AVOID modern CO2 capsules from ISI of Austria as these only appear to be compatible with recently designed/modern syphons. Older ISI branded capsules, produced in the 60's to 90's may still be of the correct shape to work as these were frequently produced to work with the later Sparklets brand syphons of that time. However, these are frequently partially discharged of CO2 gas (see another one of our KZbin videos on this subject) so it is not worth searching them out specially.
We tested brands available in Britain, such as Liss (Hungarian made), MOSA (Taiwanese?) and Morphy Richards (far eastern made?). However, we understand from US customers/users that capsules made by Leland also fit reliably, although we have not verified this ourselves.
Where available our preference is to use Liss brand, which is easily available from several sellers on Ebay in quantities from a single box of ten to catering size quantities in the hundreds. All our syphons are set up using this brand.

[@paullevine1731]

Good video. I wish I'd seen this before buying a box of the ISI brand. They fit the key but of course the neck is too short. In a pinch, I removed the gasket retaining ring of the syphon and they worked well enough to prove that my repair project was successful. I'll now try one of your recommended brands. I also have a box of green Soda King Super Chargers date coded 7/07/37 that don't fit either. So, the problem is not new!

[@robertadams9318]

Sometimes the older cartridges still have some gas in them. I have actually tried some cartridges originally made from as early as the 1930's that still appeared to have a fully charge of gas in them! As far as I am aware, with regards to the normal "elongated droplet" shaped cartridges, a good guide as to whether they still contain a reasonable quantity of gas is the cartridge weight. Most empty cartridges weigh about 20 grams and a full cartridge between 28 and 30 grams. I think Acquaspumante put up a video showing the testing of some older cartridges to see if they had gas in them.

[@pequodexpress]

Can soda syphons use refillable 8g CO2 cartridges?

[@robertadams3022]

The design of the charger cartridges reviewed in the video seems to be the same as the original ones from the 50's - 70's so I think these will fit most vintage and classic soda syphons from that period and probably older. I do know that many users of vintage and classic soda syphons comment that soda capsules made by ISI of Austria will not fit their older syphons as the size of the neck is not long enough to fit deeply into the fitting for it to be reliably punctured by the pins.

[@TheTubeTube2]

Most useful, thank you. However, (isn’t there always someone with a “however”?) I seem to have yet another cartridge type, my early wire covered French soda syphon has what seems to be a shorter cartridge holder that takes a short, plump, rather ‘dumpy’ cartridges. I can’t find any cartridges like it.

[@robertadams9318]

the type of cartridge you are describing is the "B" size cartridge, which preceded the still currently available "C" size cartridge. The B contained about 4 grams of CO2 in a roughly 1/2 sized cartridge which looked similar (if with a shorter fat body section) whereas the "C" size contains about 8 grams of CO2. I believe that the last time that the B size of gas cartridge was manufactured was in the 70's to 80's when they were made for small "half size" individual soda syphons used in hotels. I believe these were made by the Nippon Tansan Gas Company of Japan and marketed in the USA (and probably Japan/Far East). I last saw some second hand ones on Ebay in the USA.

[@loekie1707]

thank you for this, very useful. Still have a question though, do all these charger keys fit on antique soda syphons ?

[@acquaspumante_for_soda]

The charger keys shown have different threads - some were metric (eg. Heimsyphon and Merkuria Kovocas used the same thread) and some were imperial (Sparklets and some other manufacturers). However all these syphons use the - nominally - same size of CO2 charger capsules. It just appears that the design of the ISI capsules has changed over the years so the modern capsules have a shorter neck and will not reliably fit into the sockets on the classic and vintage syphons. This is why I don't recommend them.