doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT - Lantern mantles.

It's great to have so many options available for lighting when hunting, fishing, or camping. There's nothing like night fishing or camping with Coleman lanterns. I've known about the thorium in old type mantles for years, and always burned them off outdoors and handled the old mantles with a moist paper towel for disposal. My Amish neighbors use various non-electric sources of light every day. Candles and oil lamps may be a fire hazard, and put off a surprising amount of soot. Better than nothing when the power goes out though.

LED lights are a real game changer. They are so efficient that they can operate for many hours off batteries or a solar panel. I have four Honda generators from 600 watts to 4000 watts. For lighting, a radio, or light electrical loads, my little 600 watt Honda is great. It is smaller than a 12 pack size cooler, very light, quiet, and fuel efficient.

Aladin style mantle kerosene lamps are as bright as incandescent bulbs. I used them in my tent when I lived it it year.round. new ones are available along with parts. They are hard to look at without shades in the center of a table but light up a room without. Great in the outhouse in the winter as they put out heat.

Do not those keresene and oil lamps create a lot of fumes and soot? I used them a bit when we had multiple-day outages back in Iowa, but could not put up with the exhaust they create even in a large room with a vaulted ceiling and windows open.

Lamps put out soot if you don't trim the wicks or burn them too high, fumes if you use fuel oil/heating oil instead of #1 kerosene or lamp oil.

I lived with kerosene lamps for years in Africa and the smell was awful. Perhaps it was low quality fuel.

Lamps I used and still own for back up at the house.

I used lamp oil, but whether it was good quality, I do not know. I do not recall trimming wicks, so it could easily be operator error.

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Those prints a by Dave Sellers, the stag with the three lamps was done by my grandfather