Oil Lamps
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 5:57 am
Experiment with oil lamps
Originally posted by 70_West, PlanforPandemic
* Link Unavailable. This site is no longer active and available to view on line. But the info was good and we wanted to keep sharing it!
He experimented with various oils and wicks to see what the differences in burning power/time were. Go to that site to learn even more!
The lamp used was a cheapo metal lantern, made in China, 5 dollar lamp from the bottom shelf. It took all day, and several wicks, but here they are:
Lamp oil yielded excellent results of course.
Citronella oil or Tiki oil yielded excellent results, and would have the added benefit of running off the skeeters.
Kerosene yielded excellent results as well
Alcohol 97% ...excessive wick burning, mediocre results, decent light, no explosion!
Veggie Oil...very poor results with very bad wick burning, and very bad light, worst of all that I tried.
Turpentine....fairly good results, some excessive wick burning, but very tolerable.
Mineral Oil... much the same as Turpentine
Used motor oil.....soot....soot....more soot, smelled bad too. Excessive wick usage. You could probably cut it with kerosene and get a bit better results, but I doubt that would help the smell or soot much.
My wife who suggested veggie oil last night, told me she was refering to cooking oil, or used grease so with her assistance I melted down a 1/4 cup of Crisco (Butter Flavored) in a small glass, crammed a cloth wick in it and let it harden up. It has given excellent results as a candle, way better than expected. Wick usage is excellent, and I think that 1/4 cup of crisco is gonna burn all night long.
She's fairly confident that any type of lard, bacon grease will yield the same results.
I would suggest that the mineral oil and turpentine not be used unless its a real emergency as they are fairly combustable. I tried them without a disaster, but was nervous and had them in the back yard.
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Question:
If you put the melted Crisco in a tuna can with a wick, and let it harden,
do you think it would burn hot enough to heat water or soup? Maybe put a coffee can over it to contain the heat?
Do you have any suggestions for alternate materials for wicks?
Answer: I think what you are possibly refering to something I would call a hobo stove. You could use something like that to heat soups, or water, I don't know that you could boil water with it. What you want to do is to put your candle in a can that would fit inside of another, for example the can of tuna would possibly fit into a small coffee can. You would want to punch some holes in the bottom edges of the coffe can to provide air flow to the candle. Set you pan on top of that and you will have a small stove.
Years ago we used things like that using sterno in an empty C rats can. There's other fuels you can use but they aren't available to the private sector.
The size of the wick will determine the size of the flame, We just used a piece of cloth last night, cut from an old dish towel, it provided excellent light, better than the average candle.
In making a homemade wick, I'm certainly no expert. Any type of material will work, I would think you want something that would readily "wick" up what ever you were trying to burn, cotton comes to mind. Yesterday I used strips of sown seams from an old pair of blue jeans in the lantern and it seemed to do fairly good. I think for a candle you could probably get by with using clothes line cord, that would probably function well as a homemade wick.
Melt the oil or crisco down, and soak the wick in it, thats called priming the wick, put some type of weight on it, and then suspend the primed wick in the oil from a toothpick or something and let it harden back up. Trim the wick off after its set up and you are good to go.
Just from the experimenting last night I think the lantern is designed to use fluids that can be drawn up the wick easily, the used motor oil, veggie oil, couldn't travel well up the wick, so it was consumed instead of the fuel. However those same fuels can be used in a candle type, where the wick is in direct contact with the fuel. The higer combustable fuels were just the opposite, they burned off too readily, so the wick was once again consumed. Thats just all my opinion of course so take it and a dollar an get yourself a cup of coffee
Originally posted by 70_West, PlanforPandemic
* Link Unavailable. This site is no longer active and available to view on line. But the info was good and we wanted to keep sharing it!
He experimented with various oils and wicks to see what the differences in burning power/time were. Go to that site to learn even more!
The lamp used was a cheapo metal lantern, made in China, 5 dollar lamp from the bottom shelf. It took all day, and several wicks, but here they are:
Lamp oil yielded excellent results of course.
Citronella oil or Tiki oil yielded excellent results, and would have the added benefit of running off the skeeters.
Kerosene yielded excellent results as well
Alcohol 97% ...excessive wick burning, mediocre results, decent light, no explosion!
Veggie Oil...very poor results with very bad wick burning, and very bad light, worst of all that I tried.
Turpentine....fairly good results, some excessive wick burning, but very tolerable.
Mineral Oil... much the same as Turpentine
Used motor oil.....soot....soot....more soot, smelled bad too. Excessive wick usage. You could probably cut it with kerosene and get a bit better results, but I doubt that would help the smell or soot much.
My wife who suggested veggie oil last night, told me she was refering to cooking oil, or used grease so with her assistance I melted down a 1/4 cup of Crisco (Butter Flavored) in a small glass, crammed a cloth wick in it and let it harden up. It has given excellent results as a candle, way better than expected. Wick usage is excellent, and I think that 1/4 cup of crisco is gonna burn all night long.
She's fairly confident that any type of lard, bacon grease will yield the same results.
I would suggest that the mineral oil and turpentine not be used unless its a real emergency as they are fairly combustable. I tried them without a disaster, but was nervous and had them in the back yard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question:
If you put the melted Crisco in a tuna can with a wick, and let it harden,
do you think it would burn hot enough to heat water or soup? Maybe put a coffee can over it to contain the heat?
Do you have any suggestions for alternate materials for wicks?
Answer: I think what you are possibly refering to something I would call a hobo stove. You could use something like that to heat soups, or water, I don't know that you could boil water with it. What you want to do is to put your candle in a can that would fit inside of another, for example the can of tuna would possibly fit into a small coffee can. You would want to punch some holes in the bottom edges of the coffe can to provide air flow to the candle. Set you pan on top of that and you will have a small stove.
Years ago we used things like that using sterno in an empty C rats can. There's other fuels you can use but they aren't available to the private sector.
The size of the wick will determine the size of the flame, We just used a piece of cloth last night, cut from an old dish towel, it provided excellent light, better than the average candle.
In making a homemade wick, I'm certainly no expert. Any type of material will work, I would think you want something that would readily "wick" up what ever you were trying to burn, cotton comes to mind. Yesterday I used strips of sown seams from an old pair of blue jeans in the lantern and it seemed to do fairly good. I think for a candle you could probably get by with using clothes line cord, that would probably function well as a homemade wick.
Melt the oil or crisco down, and soak the wick in it, thats called priming the wick, put some type of weight on it, and then suspend the primed wick in the oil from a toothpick or something and let it harden back up. Trim the wick off after its set up and you are good to go.
Just from the experimenting last night I think the lantern is designed to use fluids that can be drawn up the wick easily, the used motor oil, veggie oil, couldn't travel well up the wick, so it was consumed instead of the fuel. However those same fuels can be used in a candle type, where the wick is in direct contact with the fuel. The higer combustable fuels were just the opposite, they burned off too readily, so the wick was once again consumed. Thats just all my opinion of course so take it and a dollar an get yourself a cup of coffee