Wiles Senior cooker.

Little has been done on the Wiles Junior as there has been much going on in my private life.
The oven has been disassembled and some of castings sand blasted and painted.
What has been found is three old pictures of this same Wiles Junior at work about 25 years ago or more.
It was been used on some sort of get together for the rural fire service.
Notice the scones , small whistle, and a beer barrel being used for steam heating hot water.( why this was so I don't know as the tea urn steam heated hot water has always worked.)
Note the incorrect fitting of the steam pressure gauge without siphon pipe.( this lead to failure of the gauge)
One photo shows steam pressure about 75 psi on the gauge and another with the safety valve blowing off indicating the boiler was at 100 psi.

Incorrect Toyota wheels were fitted at this stage of its life.

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Originally Posted by 101 Ron

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Notice the scones , small whistle, and a beer barrel being used for steam heating hot water.( why this was so I don't know as the tea urn steam heated hot water has always worked.)
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Quite possibly to provide a larger quantity of hot water, for example, for the washing up?

Just a up date.
Because I have so much going on ,not until the Xmas holidays I have been able to look at the wiles cooker.
The oven is proving a big job.
It looked good on the out side, but inside was another story.
I now have a understanding of how the fire heat flow goes around the oven box.
( much of the original baffles were rotted away)
The gases from the oven fire box pass around the inner oven twice before going up the flue.
The wiles cooker were built to do a job in war time and therefore were not built to last along time.
This shows in the construction of the oven as no provision was made for corrosion.
one complete outer side of the oven has been remade and ready to weld on.
A new floor is also ready to weld in.
Some angle iron sections have been replaced.
Another outer oven side may have to be replaced yet...….I have to see how it checks out ….It doesn't look good.
The inner oven has had a patch welded in.
I need to paint and treat the inside/fire box part of the oven to try and make things last longer.
The boiler side of things is going good with the boiler been fired up to full pressure a few times now with no leaks and my home made whistles working extremely loud and well after a little bit of tuning...…( I have nothing else yet to use the steam for )

some photos
you will not be able to make sense of some of it.

some more

todays effort

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 101 Ron

todays effort

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But on the Plus side Ron, it is keeping you off the streets, whereas you know you could get into all sorts of **** otherwise.


So what you are really thinking is, you wish the war had dragged on for a further 50 years by which time those improvements would have been made & you wouldn't need to concern yourself with Corrosion matters?[bigsad] [bigrolf]


I can see a slight flaw with that plan.

Getting very close to doing a roast dinner.
Oven is mounted back onto the trailer and bolted up to the boiler.
The oven had much new angle iron fitted into it , to replace very rusty stuff.
The baking trays have been lightly sand blasted and then oiled.
I now am at the 2/3s done mark.
Steaming bins and tea tank need to be sorted soon and that will be another learning curve and skill set I will have to master.( steaming bins are in poor condition)
Tin smiths are now a bit of a lost art..
Still sorting some minor tinware around the oven and sealing things with high temp sealing compound.
I am also looking at options for correct looking hose for the steamer bins and steam immersion pipe.
Steam pipes/water pipes and door handles need to be painted to correct colour.
Chasing correct counter sunk screws to hold down hot plate.

The spare wiles senior cooker has been a godsend for getting missing fittings and parts.
I will soon have to look into getting pure 100 percent tin for the steamer bins and either
1/ solder on the tin with flux and heat manually as they do for copper cookware over seas.
or
2/ electroplate the tin on to the repaired steamer bins.


the bottom of the steamer bins on some of them is completely missing

a third option would be getting some made new...…...which is most likely not a option due to cost and finding someone who can work tinplate over wire beads and the equipment to do so.
The bottom of new steamer bins still would have to be tinned some how.



The steam heated tea urn has its own problems in that its a tinned sheet metal outer which is corroded, and soldered together, asbestos sheet insulation which is flaking and then a copper inner tank.

I had both the boiler and the oven fired up today.
It would be more than 25 years since the oven was used.
The boiler was used at my work for radiator cleaning and general steam cleaning before it was sold 20 years ago.
The oven was not required and therefore has been out of use longer.
The surprising thing is how well it worked with a very small fire.
What I remember it took a bit of a fire and time to get things cooking.
The reason is the baffles around the oven are in place and working as it should.
Tea urn is working and boils things well...…...but needs to be overhauled.
The whole unit really starts to run efficiently after a few hours with the boiler and oven sharing each other heat and the cast iron plates acting as a heat soak.
I have noticed the boiler feed water tank been mounted on the back of the boiler tends to preheat the feed water after a few hours of operation.
The fire wood usage goes down greatly after the first hour.
The few people who have seen the wiles cooker in operation want it for various different events .
I am now starting to get a reward for the hard yards placed in this project.
Oven temps with a small fire exceeded 250c at the top and 190c at the bottom.
the hot plate above the fire normally ran at 220c and about 180c near the boiler side of the hot plate.
All measured with a lazer heat gun.
The oven can run much hotter if needed.
The unit has no temperate gauge for the oven, boiler or hot plate.
It all relies on the experience of the cook/operator and takes time to acquire the knowledge and to also know the traits of the individual wiles cooker.
one soft wood pallet ran the whole thing for about three hours.