I am a bit surprised at the amounts of comments on this subject, and if you look back up the line of the comments, I suggested that the French "pigeon" lamp is my choice. Not only is it my choice but it is the choice of European gunmakers who work daily using a lamp to black surfaces. An excellent video example is in the link below, starting at about 2 minutes 25 seconds into the video. You will notice that this lamp has the ability to be turned down to a very small flame, while it is not in direct use. This is a feature most useful and also this lamp has a safety feature that mostly unknown to Americans and that is that the entire (or mostly entire) fuel canister has a internal wool fill that soaks up the fuel oil when the canister is filled. The lamp wick fits down into this wool fill and "wicks" fuel from the wool fill to keep the flame going. Because of this wool fill if in the event the lamp is tipped over or dropped onto the workshop floor, no fuel spills from--a great fire safety feature.
Sometimes what works, works the best and trying to reinvent the same is without merit. Not only is the ability to turn the Pigeon lamp flame down a good fire safety feature, but a good cleaning feature as you reduce the amount of soot floating around your workshop.
In the past I used similars type of homemade blacking lamps that one sees in shops, but then I learned better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj1k2jMYhuc
