Wiles Junior Cooker
 

I took my Wiles Junior Cooker to the Battle of Bannockburn day at Bannockburn, Victoria, last weekend as part of the Geelong Miltary Re-enactment Group display. I had it operating for two days just making steam and nothing more than heating pies. It was amazing how much interest it created with people walking all around it and fascinated with the boiler works. I met three old blokes who all used these cookers in their time with 2/10 Medium Regiment. This was an artillery reserve unit based in Geelong, and each battery was issued with a cooker to take to the field with their guns. One bloke told me the cooker was still being used by him in 1975. Does anyone know how long they had use for? The big four wheel cookers were still going into the 80's I believe. I have another of these Juniors and at some stage I will rebuild one very good cooker out of the two. I would love to know if anyone has any advice on how to get the steam bins replated. I think they are tinned, not galvanised. Is there a food grade quality process that would be required?

Cecil & Co in Bayswater, Vic made a replica set for the AWM (after I had left the AWM) for the 4wh Wiles. Don't know if they supplied them tinned or galvanized: talk to Chris Cecil about it, he may remember (it was a few years ago).

Mike C

Hello Jack, I too worked as a dixxy basher around the kitchens with these cookers from 1978 to at least 1985 whilst pulled out of the gun line to help the cooks and stay out of the way of the WO caterer but never in 2/10 Medium Regiment. I think these blokes may have been confused as in 1975 they would have been in 10 Medium Regiment Army Reserve based at Geelong and Colac with 2/15 Field Regiment Army Reserve based out of Batman Avenue (HQ) Dandenong (2 Fd Battery) and Frankston (23 Field Battery). The Regiments had been merged as 2/10 medium regiment in 1991, I was the Battery Guide of the new 22 Field Battery, interesting, in the field we often deployed with mixed ordinance on the ground the 155mm and the 105mm.

I can recall deploying with the Regimental kitchen in the bush and setting up and refueling, with standard fuel, the choofas to boil the kitchen water, a total of 15, 60 litre steel rubbish bins all with a drop of petrol dripping onto a hot plate causing the drip of fuel to ignite and hence heated the water and hence the term Choofa as all you could hear was the Choof, Choof, Choof of the heating units. The field kitchens you are speaking about fed at least 400 troops 3 times a day and the gun lines got their meals delivered by the Q staff in hot boxes run by at least 6 cooks including the WO CAT and Catering Sgt. They also used a petrol powered oven which pressurized the fuel and heated the oven much the same as a Tilley light works.

Great to hear that you have one back up working, I cannot tell you if boilers had been lined but I know they did the lot, onion bags with 400 eggs in them immersed to hard boil them, stews and those delightful curries at 1am in the morning, food cold but still burning the lining of your tummy. It would be great to have a Choofa and one of those ovens also in your display, then you would have the complete field kitchen and of course the metre wide plate BBQ as the final piece.

Boy, I hated being in the dixxy bashing crew left to pack up the kitchens into the back of a 6x6 F1 for the trip home, a gun crew could pack up and move in 3 mins a field kitchen took hour upon blasted hour, oh well it was the army and we hurried up and waited quite a lot.

Hope I have not bored you too much.

Cheers,

Dave.

Thanks Dave. They might have been referring to the regiment as its last designation perhaps. For some reason I can't load a photo of the cooker.

Thanks for the tip Mike. The bins I have are actually in reasonable condition except a bit too rusty in the bottom. I could remove the handles and fittings and have them replated if I knew what the process was. I possibly could have the rust sandblasted and then just keep the bare steel coated with cooking oil when not in use but every time I use the steamers I think the rust would start again. Better if I can have them stripped and replated.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The best I can gauge though old pictures and different sources is the end barrel plate on the boiler was painted red when new and then black during their service as retest stamping was carried out on that surface.
Steam pipes were painted red and cold water pipes including the pump painted blue.
Door handles on the ovens were painted red or had a red stripe on them to indicate that they were hot to touch.

OK Have To Ask What Do They Look Like
 

Hi

Been reading the thread and waiting for someone to post a picture. For those of us not familiar with a Wiles Jr how about a picture along with some of the kit that goes with it. Was there a Wiles Sr.?

Cheers Phil

I do have a copy of a service record on the operation time....ie steaming hours and repairs and inspection history.
It appears every senior cook filled out the log book of time the boiler was steamed and checked that it was still certificate pressure testing wise.
The history log book shows the methods used to preserve the boiler during storage and if any moisture absorbent material had to be move from inside the boiler before use.
The information I am really lacking is the first hand knowledge of how to correctly use the steamer pots for the cooking of steamed meats or soups,to the steaming of peas.
It is a type of cooking not done now, especially in big volumes to feed the troops.
How were fried foods done like chips..............did the small oven top ever get hot enough to allow frying of foods.
I know the ovens knock out the best baked goods,but its the other stuff is lacking information wise.
I do have the operators book, but it is very basic about how to use the steamers correctly...........I need to find a old wiles cooker cook

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/military-t...or-cooker.html

The above is a thread on another site I started and has some good pics and links to the interesting development of the wiles cookers starting in the great war.

To cut a long story short.
Cooking with steam is faster and less vitamins are lost in the cooking process.
Cooking can be done on the move .
The by product of steam is hot water which is handy for washing up dishes and troops showers.
The steam can be used to clean the cooker its self.
The cooker uses less fuel than open topped hot plates boiling of food stuffs.
It can run on any fuel.
Most used wood, but train or ships coal has been used so has oil and LP Gas.
Junior units could be parachuted into place.
Stationary units with extra steaming pots and ovens made and a 100 gallon hot water system.
Roasting ovens and boiler had separate fires, but shared each others heat. To help efficiency.
They saved much time,fuel,smoke over the mud ovens, fowler stoves and sawyer stoves they replaced.
They could boil water to make it safe for drinking purposes and clean the water they needed for its own boiler.
They were used on cargo ships that were used as troop ships as the ships kitchens were not big enough.
They were chained down on cargo wagons on troop trains so troops had a warm meal when the train stopped at the stations.
They were made without normal kitchen plating and frills to save materials during the war.
The braking trays were of special design so the fat wouldn't spill out , but go back onto the meat to baste it if the cooker trailer was being towed.

Wiles Cooker Article
 

Gents,

I wrote an article for KVE News a few years ago about the history of the steam cooker (Wiles Type, both 4 wheel and 'Junior') in Australian service.

It was published in the following edition of KVE News. Scroll down to page 16 to find it.

http://corowaswim-in.org/docs/Corowa...ber%202012.pdf

Mike C

Mike would you mind sending me a copy of that article for my records please? :thup2:

Cliff,

I don't have it as the formatted article you see in the newsletter, as editor Richard Farrant puts it together: I just provide raw text and images.

You can save the newsletter as a pdf file and print it, which I think will give you what you are after.

Just click on the link I provided, and hit 'save'.

Regards

Mike C

thanks Mike have done now. :thup2:

You've been waiting long enough, Phil.

Here are some photos from the online catalog of an auction held today. The Wiles Junior cooker had an in-date boiler certificate and was certified to 100psi, seller claimed that it was one of only 3 such certified boilers, but I suspect that may have been Victoria only.

For those interested, the Cooker made AU$9000 plus buyer's fees. I know there were at least 2 MLU'ers interested in the bidding, but don't who got it.

The same auction also has the remains of a second cooker.

It still retains it ARN plate, reading 162998.

Looking at the AWN 126 listings, there is a Copperplate notation next to this batch of numbers. Can anyone decipher it?

'Allotted to ORD2 for Trailers Cooker'

Did the auction happen to list the boiler numbers, Tony?

Mike

I don't think the 2nd cooker included the boiler, it was not visible in the pics.

Neither item description included a boiler number, but the boiler certificate shows 2 numbers: 2632 and BIA B19078. Do either of them sound like the original format?

2632 is about right for a Wiles Junior: thanks Tony.

Burning the midnight oil again, Tony?

Mike

Up early for a Sunday morning, aren't you? The sun never sets on MLU! :note:

Alarm goes off at 6. Sundays are like every other day around here. Morning coffee = check the email, check the forums, check several news feeds, head along the passage to the office....

2632 is the highest boiler number I have heard of - the next is 2492 on ARN 163114. But it is close enough to be the original boiler, as the records I have for the Juniors have very few boiler numbers recorded, and there are enough of them to reach 2632 at least. Wiles boilers, unlike the chassis/equipment numbers, appear to be a simple progression, so adding up the Seniors, statics and juniors, and possibly the spares, it easily comes to 2632.

Mike

I bought the scrap cooker mainly to assist in restoration of another junior.
This one did have a boiler and an oven with a build date of 1971, similar to an oven I bought from Ian Tankards collection a couple of years ago.
I have enough to put three Juniors back into operation.

Three Cookers back into to operation! Are you planning on inviting all of the MLU fraternity over for dinner? :)

As long as they do the dishes.