Sheen Flame Wand

[brianatbrant]

Hello All. I have owned a Sheen X300 flame gun for a couple of years and use it fairly regularly. Just about to acquire the rarer Sheen Flame Wand. I believe it works on the same principle IE vaporising the paraffin but would love it if someone has first hand experience or an old manual tucked away. Cheers / Brian

[dave]

If you google Sheen Flame Wand you can still get all the spares and the operating instructions as well.
Dave

[charlie616]

I too have a Sheen Flame Wand which is in need of some TLC. I contacted Sheen in 2021 and received the following response,
“… unfortunately we no longer support the flamewand. Sadly it is obsolete having not been made for over 35 Years.”

If anyone has a link to where spares and the operating instructions can be found, please let me know.
Roy

[brianatbrant]

Hi Charlie. Well I picked up my flamewand a couple of months ago and have managed to get it working. So I’m sure you know to pump the wand to build pressure ; check that you have pressure by briefly opening the flow valve to check liquid paraffin spurts out of the burner jet before closing. This also primes the vaporising coil with fuel. Then poor a bit of paraffin on to the wick and ignite. Now wait several minutes for the paraffin in the coil to boil and vaporise. Then slowly turn the flow valve back on just enough to create a roaring flame.

The key things to note (1) does it hold pressure when pumped up with paraffin in it ?: seals may have perished either on the pump itself or the paraffin flow valve (2) have you checked the jet nozzle isn’t blocked ? (3) is there still enough of the wick left to ignite when soaked in paraffin ? I found it very hard to get acess to the jet nozzle without a long reach socket of the appropriate size and I still haven’t worked out how to dismantle the burner part to replace the wick.

[charlie616]

Hi Brian, Thanks for your reply and good to hear you got yours working.
“does it hold pressure when pumped up with paraffin in it?” – No, because the seal has not only perished but is completely missing. Any chance of picture of what it should look like please? Thanks.

[brianatbrant]

Hi Charlie. I assume you mean the seal in the pump because of course there are seals also in the stop valve that control the flow of paraffin to the coil. I’ll go and take some photos and forward to you. Have you managed to dismantle the wand at all ? Still unsure how you get a replacement wick in one of these.

PS do you own a Sheen X300/X500 weedburner by any chance? I actually think that despite these being more bulky they are more effective. I am a big fan of clearing weeds that come up between patio slabs with one of these.

[brianatbrant]

Photos as requested

[charlie616]

Hi Brian,
Sorry, it may be me but I can’t see the photos.

tbh, after the response from Sheen, I put this as another “project” on the to do pile and only started looking into it again when FiL asked if I had something for the weeds at his new place (tho, given that that is a timber construction home, I’m a little uneasy but that’s another story).
As to the X300/x500 no, only the Flamewand which was found on fb Marketplace for £10. Another “bargain” 🙂 Folks used to have one back in the mid-80s but it got left behind in a house move.

[brianatbrant]

Sorry Charlie here is the photo. Two seals. One on the pump that is a large O ring. The other is a flat rubber washer inside the cylinder of the pump.

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[charlie616]

Thank-you for this.
Interesting… somewhere along the lines I got the idea that the seal was leather. From the looks of the one photo, you have a somewhat loose fitting neoprene(?) washer. I’d guess that that is not the original.

[davidbliss]

We had a large version that looked like a very large fire extinguisher 1930-40s, no idea of make but held getting on for three gallons brimmed, had a carrying strap but a bit on the heavy side. My grandfather and my father used it quite a bit and in the 1963 winter was used to thaw water pipes out to get water for the animals, I never used it for weeding but with fire bricks could heat up some serious big bits of metal given time.often had to replace the pump washer, and often a bit of leather used to get in the non return foot valve and pump handle would go up, and was another reason for not carrying it as often would dribble paraffin when that happened.

[Author]

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