Plessey Tin Lantern

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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby traffic-light-man on Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:00 am

Well, I've finally pieced it all back together and done the final touch ups.

Here are the pictures from the project. I had a lot more, but my camera is playing up, hence some of them are iPhone pics. The room became a complete mess whilst I did this project, so please excuse that!

First thing was to remove the doors, which is an easy enough job. I disassembled the lenses and doors.

I then washed the lenses and cleaned them up, I repainted the STOP lettering on the red lens and I also removed and cleaned up the reflectors, though to be fair, they've seen their best days!

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I then removed the sockets. The sockets in this head are different to those in the others as they're not mounted to the rear of the signal case, they're bolted to the reflector assemblies. The wires are also simply wound around the sockets and secured with a small bit of solder - no terminal screws in sight.

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The Neutral wires were simply wound together and had this porcelin cap screwed over the cable ends to make a common neutral, something which is seen in all of the Tin Heads that I have and I can't help but think how unsafe it is.

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Next up, I had to remove the end caps. I at first thought heat might be required, but I used paint stripping gel to clear the paint from the screws and hey presto, they worked loose.

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The signal must have fell at some point, as it is dented in on one side, the base cap and fixings are in a relatively shoddy way too, but nothing too major, I was able to straighten them out with a bit of hammering.

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Next, I sanded and re-sprayed the black visor/door assemblies.

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I also sprayed the white end caps and the white visor/door, and then hand painted the inside of the visor black. It actually turned out a lot better than I initially thought for a hand painted job.

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I next sprayed the body - as you've probably gathered from the pictures, I had already given the signal an initial white coat to see what the signal would look like with the white parts, which I then used as an undercoat and primer.

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Having repeated the above with the black sections, I was able to remove the paper and tape.

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I rewired the loom, using modern flex, as I wasn't happy leaving the cloth wiring inside. I spliced it to the wire that was already attached to the sockets.

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I made sure that the earthing connection was made.

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I've terminated all the aspects together for now until I get some form of controller sorted.

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I re-assembled the light, and turned it on!

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I might have a look at sorting that light spill where the doors don't meet the head cleanly due to the damage, but I'm not sure what can be done for now.

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Last edited by traffic-light-man on Sun Nov 04, 2012 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby vaughn on Sun Nov 04, 2012 8:23 am

Hello Traffic-Light-Man,
That signal looks great, I really enjoy the pics of your project. I read a post on here yesterday of a home made penetraint that has some good stats behind it. I used the heat soak method on my last project and it worked. Ya heat the area around the screw with a tourch then shot the screw with a penetraint, repeat until the screw breaks loose.My last project I needed to heat the screws to the point the area turned black and would smoke spraying penitraint on it. It made me barn smell good for a few weeks. I really thought some of the screws wouldn't come out but they all did.http://i1064.photobucket.com/albums/u36 ... 0956-2.jpg
http://i1064.photobucket.com/albums/u36 ... G_1160.jpg
I can't wait to get another beat up, rusted out signal to wrench on.
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby JVC8230 on Sun Nov 04, 2012 5:38 pm

:thumbsup:
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby jab8356 on Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:32 pm

Very nice! :thumbsup: Makes me want to repaint the ends on mine the correct white color. I was unsure at the time I did mine and painted them black. :rob:
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby traffic-light-man on Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:35 pm

Cheers guys.

Gives you something to do, Jerry! :crazy:
P.S. I actually left the screws for the end caps and the wing nuts on mine in their bare brass condition after seeing yours with the brass fixings!
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby jab8356 on Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:01 pm

Yeah, brass looks good on signals!
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby 2070 on Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:46 pm

I like the look of that!!! :good: :thumbsup:

  A Marbelite in the same colors... :crazy:  
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby MarkIV on Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:05 pm

Beutiful signal. I went to Germany with i know its the same as Britan but I love forgein, especially UK and europe traffic lights. Do know any good places for me to get cause I cant buy or sell on the forum until Dec 3 :sad: . But I love the europe & uk signals. :drool:
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby traffic-light-man on Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:19 am

2070 wrote:
  A Marbelite in the same colors... :crazy:  


Interesting idea, Phil! :crazy:

MarkIV wrote:Beutiful signal. I went to Germany with i know its the same as Britan but I love forgein, especially UK and europe traffic lights. Do know any good places for me to get cause I cant buy or sell on the forum until Dec 3 :sad: . But I love the europe & uk signals. :drool:


I know German signal heads come up regularly on the German branch of a certain well-known auction website! Less so than here in the UK, but with UK signals, they're a lot heavier so cost a lot more to ship anyway.
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Re: Plessey Tin Lantern

Postby MarkIV on Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:37 am

What is the name of it?
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