Wiles Junior Cooker

[Mike Cecil]

Not sure anyone does hot-dipped tinning anymore: I don't think there is a call for it. Try a chrome plating company: they would know if anyone else in their sector still does it.

Champion Electro-Plating in Bridge Road Richmond are long, long gone ... its now a car yard, I think.

Mike C

[Tony Mathers]

Try Preston Plate, in Thomastown. They might do it themselves or know someone who can. - 9466 2700

[jack neville]

is there a reason why i cant upload photos at present?

[Ron King]

The wiles junior was used until 1979.
The wiles senior lasted until 1985 with the very last ones beening LP Gas fired.
I will when I get time start restoring a senior cooker.
The steamer pots were tinned.
I will be retinning my pots.
I don't think galvanising is legal for food use.
My plan so far is to purchase pure tin..........must be pure food grade with no other metals in the mix from overseas......ie America.
The process is a bit like soldering using a LPG burner and spread the tin over the pots with the tin following the heat.
The pots would have to be sand blasted for the tin to flow.
Ron

[jack neville]

I did do a bit of Internet research Ron and buying the tin ingots was no problem on line. Not that expensive either but not sure how much would be needed. I found some advice on the tinning process and it did seem to be fairly straightforward. I think as you said, get the rusty bit sandblasted and then attempt to retin the bare metal. I think I will try tinning something else as a test run first. It appears they were only tinned on the inside. My bins are painted silver on the outside. Not sure if that was an attempt by the previous owner to resemble tinning or not. They are rusting through the silver paint and will need attention as well. I haven't found any data on what the external surface should be. Perhaps some of our cooks could enlighten us.

[Ron King]

Looking at the collection of steamer pots I have it was as follows.
Food grade flat tin coated steel plate, exactly the same stuff as used in food cans.
Edges were rolled over plated wire.
The bottom seams were then heated and tinned in the corners to seal the bottoms of the pots.
They were not dipped.
The lids were done the same.
During the war Australia imported our tin plate steel from the USA as we did not have the ability to make it at that time even though we had a great increase in our canning industry at the time.
The laws have change now and modern food machinery now uses stainless steel, but I do remember being at a bread making factory and a older doe mixing machine bowl was beening retinned in the 1990s.
When the tin wears off though to the steel it had to be retinned straight away to pass food processing inspections.
The people who carried out the work operated from a boot of car and used tin in thin sticks and a LPG burner...........all very simple really.
I am not certain if any sort of flux was used.

[Ron King]

The steamer pots were not painted as originally made.
I suspect the army did paint the outside of the pots at a later date in silver to try and keep them looking good as rust started to set in.