In part 5 of his "Keropunk" series, blogger Russell Graves, covers mantle lanterns.
All of the previous lanterns I've talked about use the flame as a source of light - carbureted in various ways, but "carbon in the flame glowing directly." A mantle is a device that, when heated, glows brightly in the visible regions - it puts out more light than a blackbody radiator at a given temperature, because it uses materials that are low emissivity in the infrared spectrum (heat), and high emissivity in the visible spectrum (light, useful to humans). There are also some benefits from helping contain the flame and the heat within the enclosure, but the end result is rather more light for a given amount of heat than you'd otherwise get.
Earlier parts in his "Keropunk" series:
- Keropunk Part 4: Kerosene Heaters Thermal Images and Operating Notes
- Keropunk Part 3: Kerosene Radiant Heaters
- Keropunk Part 2: Lantern Analysis
- Keropunk Part 1: Lanterns
Be careful of the thorium in some mantles.
I remember similar lanterns from my childhood, including the Tilley Lamp, but how many of our community have ever seen these lanterns anywhere other than on TV or in movies? Does anyone here still use a similar lamp? - JR
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:03AM (1 child)
I have a friend that collects these old lamps. The mantle glows very bright. It seems almost unreal and it's a very white light (high color temp). They're neat, but you can't touch the mantles. They are extremely fragile.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday November 10 2023, @03:35AM
They're basically ceramic ash with some metal content. Yeah, extremely fragile-brittle. Also a little touchy to get burned in properly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mantle [wikipedia.org]
I've lived with a propane lamp as my primary light (this works, but is sub-optimal). A lot of Amish homes are lit that way. Somewhere around here I have a gasoline lantern that also uses these mantles, but haven't used it since about 1990.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:12AM (2 children)
https://americangaslamp.com/blog/gas-mantle-maintenance/ [americangaslamp.com]
Mentions thorium in some types of mantle.
An older house near me has an old shallow gas well (I assume mostly methane) on the property and they burn two mantle lamps 24/7 at the end of their driveway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:47AM (1 child)
You can do that if they frack near you too.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @02:11PM
Or you can just light your tap water when you need a little extra light.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:23AM
There is always someone who can't understand how fragile the mantles are. I don't typically use a kerosene lamp for anything other than emergencies. So, you go to the closet to pull it out in an emergency, only to find that the mantle has been destroyed. ("not me" "I haven't even been in that closet!" "Brother who no longer lives at home did it!" etc ad nauseum)
For that reason, we have 3 of the more traditional "hurricane lamps" sans the mantle. Such lamps can be had for ten or fifteen bucks, for the cheapies, or you can spend a hundred bucks or more for better quality and/or brand recognition. These are less bright, less efficient, and less appealing, but they aren't so fragile either.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:30AM
The YouTube channel Technology Connections did an episode on these. As always it was pretty interesting.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:06AM (7 children)
We used to camp up in the mountains for months at a time during summer vacations - even if we lost one mantle, we had a whole load of spares and the noobs were competent with them by the end of the trip. We also got good at unblocking petrol stoves!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @02:13PM (6 children)
I was going to say: who hasn't used a "Coleman" propane or gasoline powered lantern while away from the electric grid? They're super-effective, much better than battery powered solutions were pre-LED and Lithium, which wasn't _that_ long ago.
Just have to provide them with a wide area to work in, they do get hot. We had 2 collapsible tripods for camping use, they stood about 6' tall and the lanterns would hang from the apex. With only one lantern running the shadows were intense, so we'd set one up on either side of the campsite - as I recall a 500g propane tank would run the lamps for something like 8 hours on "low" which was still brighter than we needed. They were also good for night fishing, would attract all kinds of things.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:41PM (3 children)
We camped a lot in the 60s and 70s, sort of a group retreat with a bunch of friends. This was in the NE USA where the state forest was empty of people, pretty safe, no bears in the area, etc. (we avoided hunting season).
Every now and then someone would bring a Coleman lantern and I'd do my best to keep it turned off. Even flashlights were annoying and ruined night vision for extended periods. Except on the most moonless of nights, there's plenty of light at night to move around. With a small campfire there's enough long wavelength light to do more detailed things like simple cooking and sorting out the stuff in a tent.
It's amazing how many stars you can see on a clear night, when your night vision is really working well.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:03PM
Agree, the dark is nice, but... we would often arrive to our campsite after sunset and be setting up and settling in well after twilight was gone. The campsite was under high but thick tree canopy, so even on nights with good moonlight it was pretty hard to see in there. After we had setup, cooked, eaten, cleaned up, etc. the lanterns would go out - on later trips. The first time we stayed out there we ran one all night as a sort of security blanket. Even still, we awoke that first morning to a big raccoon that was investigating our campsite - standing on his hind legs he was about 4' tall, which is really impressive when peering out from a tent flap less than 2' off the ground. It was also kinda neat being able to see the bats in the bright light as they would flit through the campsite area, eating the bugs we were attracting.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:09PM (1 child)
Maybe my eyesight wasn't good enough - without a light the risk to spill the (extremely cheap) wine was too great!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:06PM
> ...(extremely cheap) wine
At least yours was liquid. Reminds me--
For many years we camped out in the woods on New Year's Eve, often in a foot of snow (very comfy bedding). One year it was _really_ cold and the cheap wine froze.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:11PM (1 child)
When I was a kid, we would camp and had those Coleman lamps. Nowadays, it's all electric, except for (maybe the stove), and the campfire. Something about the sound of those lamps burning just brings me back to those times. I still prefer a gas camp stove, but when you're "barely camping" there's usually an electric outlet in the shelter. Having a long electric griddle is sure handy, when cooking for more than a couple people.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:31PM
These days, you can lug out something like this: https://www.anker.com/a1770 [anker.com] and have all the low power stuff (including lights) taken care of. Gas or other fossil fuel is still better for the heavy heat loads like cooking.
I recall some time around 1999 when I took an old UPS with dead battery from the office and hooked it up to a small car battery so I could use an electric drill off-grid. See, we bought this picnic table and carefully read all the assembly instructions on the outside of the box, and no power tools were required... until you open the box and a paper falls out suggesting that if you don't pre-drill the screw holes you're really gonna have a bad time - the screws they supplied would snap off before torquing through the wood with the undersized pre-drill holes they shipped with...
I suppose if we kept going there we could have gotten a 200' extension cord to run from the truck's parking spot over to the campsite and just run an inverter in the truck... but that was later days. This was private land and we put a grass access road through it, before the road it was 1200' from the parking spot to the campsite.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday November 09 2023, @07:06PM (1 child)
Among the bottom fourth of global household income, Kerosene is by far the most common source of lighting. It is still very much a thing. Electrification projects are helping, but it's still common. Projects like this one Project Lumina [lbl.gov] are trying to help by making solar an option in Kerosene-using areas, but it'll still be around for a long time.
Personal opinion, if you take electrical options off the table, I prefer Kerosene lanterns and heaters vs. White Gas or propane. Propane cylinders are heavy. Camp gas is much more expensive and likely to catch fire if spilled. I've never seen a kerosene cooker, but I'm intrigued by the idea. On trail I use a twig or alcohol stove for cooking, and I've had a JetBoil on my Christmas wish list for a while. If there's a jetboil-sized kerosene option, I'd be interested to see it.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday November 17 2023, @05:10PM
So I looked it up and the Primus stoves I read about from the Bearland/Nobearland expeditions were Kerosene stoves and they still are a thing. The modern implementations of that is the SVEA stove by Optimus. Looking at them, there's some room for improvement if anyone wants to play with them. They use combustion heat to vaporize the fuel, which makes the startup process a little fidgety. Still very cool kit though. MSR has some more modern multi-fuel options in this space too.