I bought a DVD that is basically a wonderful tour of the Holland & Holland factory. Each step of the gunmaking process is explained. The workmen are all using an oil lamp to generate soot to help them with inletting. I bought an oil lamp on Ebay and I have filled it with lamp oil. I am not getting the amount of soot that they were getting at H&H. Is the height of the wick critical or is it type of oil that is needed to genereate adequate soot?

I use plain kerosene in mine. It may be that lamp oil burns too clean, not sure.

I think you'll find they are using carbide lamps, the flames of which leave a fine sooty dust on parts - human or otherwise!

We used to use them to blacken up the sights on our rifles before shooting matches back in the 60s and 70s

Tim

While I have seen them called alcohol lamps, kerosene seems to be a popular fuel.

Kerosene or stove oil illuminated my boyhood. Turning up the wick soots the shade. I keep three table lamps for when power fails, right cosy with dry hardwood in the Resolute.

There's a Midwayusa dvd on British sxs shotguns that might be worth getting. It's been mention on and off in the past by others here.

I didn't have a lamp and used a candle. Actually it was for fitting a new barrel.

I have nothing intelligent to add here, just an anecdote. In several books I saw the admonishment "ONLY use metal lamps, never glass" for years. Only recently I saw the edict explained and it made perfect sense.

You don't use a glass lamp because if it hits the floor, it is nothing but a Molotov cocktail.

And then the lightbulb went on as to why the lamp must always be metal for purposes of stock fitting.

The assorted lamps those guys are using in the H&H video are filled with Parafin. Gives off a very sooty flame.

Why not use good old non-flammable, non-sooty inletting black?

Unless you just like greasy soot...

To me, the inletting black doesn't seem to work as well as the soot. I wish it did, don't like the clean-up with the blacking lamp. Kerosene is my fuel of choice.

Every time I use Inletting black, it ends up everywhere! When inletting actions to wood, it sometimes it stains the wood. This has inspired me to us a lamp next time.

I remember the alcohol lamps we used to have in the chemistry sets when I was young. They got soot everywhere.

Jerry

As some still prefer alkenet root over modern non-light fugitive, deep penetrating, color-mixable stain...
I been using Permatex Prussian Blue for nearly four decades, available from most any auto parts store. Doesn't seem to soot up the shop I'm in the midst of spring cleaning...

LD1, I use store bought lamp oil and just hold the part very close to the wick, causing incomplete combustion of the oil, leaving a good coating of black soot. You might trim the wick properly--with a pair of sissors cut off the square corners of the wick about 45 degrees. That'll give you a much narrower flame. Bet if you googled "wick trimming" or something like that you'd get a picture. Be sure to wipe off the soot every once in a while cause it tends to build up and give false readings. Sometimes I use inletting black. Both are messy though.

I believe parafin is Kerosene, at least thats what we call parafin.
As for alchohol I would have thought it burnt clean.
Perhaps its a bit like the mineral spirits saga,depends on where in the world you are as to what it is.

GDU

Parafin oil here is quite different from Kerosene. I use parafin oil for rubbing stock finishes with rottenstone or other suitable abraisives.

I don't build doubles, but for inletting flintlocks I build for a hobby I like to use Dry Erase Markers. Not messy, easy to get off and it makes a mark just like inletting black or soot. Just wipe the surface clean with alcohol before you start so the marker takes. Sometimes a second color like red is useful as well.

This is what is also called "mineral oil" but it isn't the same as the parafin used in lamps. I believe the latter to be a refined kerosene.

Kerosene can be burnt to give a lot of smoke - it used to be used in "smudge post" in citrus groves.

I have always used diesel engine petrol as it gives just the proper amount of smoke.

Alcohol lamp with mineral spirits

And a little goes a long way.

I use a pure beeswax candle and for smaller areas a large dry erase marker. The markers work well and come in a variety of colors which helps with contrast.

Interesting . Paraffin oil is another example of various English speaking people being separated by a common language. Here is a paraffin oil used in the U.S. and also attached is a definition relating "paraffin oil" to the term in other countries.

from Wikipedia------------Paraffin, or paraffin hydrocarbon, is also the technical name for an alkane in general, but in most cases it refers specifically to a linear, or normal alkane — whereas branched, or isoalkanes are also called isoparaffins. It is distinct from the fuel known in the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa as paraffin oil or just paraffin, which is called kerosene in most of the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.