If you haven't seen an Aladdin kerosene lamp then you need to.
They are a remarkable piece of technology (even though they've
been around a long time).
If you grew up going on campouts where there was always a kid
that had a gas lantern (remember pumping up the tank pressure?)
then the
Aladdin kerosene lamp will be a pleasant surprise .....
no pumping up the tank, with kerosene you'll be less concerned
about the thing blowing up in your face (pressurized gas makes
me nervous), and it's quiet .... I mean really quiet.
The 'heart' of the Aladdin kerosene lamp is its mantle. It's
operation is similar to the gas lantern but the Aladdin runs
on kerosene and it isn't pressurized.
The kerosene lamp that you may have had as a child generated
light by the carbon in the kerosene being hot enough to put
out some visible light (though not much). The Aladdin kerosene
lamp generates its light by the kerosene flame heating the
mantle to incandescence; it is a very much more efficient
process as compared to just a kerosene flame.
In several places in their literature Aladdin says that their
lamps put out the light of a 60 Watt light bulb. I don't know
if it's 60 Watts but if not it's close; if you turn up the
wick (to increase the flame) the mantle will be glowing
white.
The 'down-side' is that you're dealing with a very hot object;
make sure that there are no children who can get near the
lamp. Also it will consume oxygen from a room (though I don't
think too fast as he lamp is very efficient). Interestingly
there is very little smell once the lamp is up to operating
temperature ... the white hot mantle is apparently very good
at making sure that the kerosene vapor is consumed in the
combustion process.
So if you've got an
Aladdin lamp that works why would you want
another mantle ? Easy .... if your present mantle breaks and
you don't have a spare your lamp is unusable and the mantle
is very 'brittle'.
A new mantle has some kind of 'blue stuff' that it looks to
have been dipped in but the first time you light it up the
heat from the kerosene flame burns the coating away and
leaves the mantle a whitish color.
Once a mantle has been used (it's that whitish color) it is
very brittle; don't try to remove the mantle from where it's
locked-down into the base of the chimney and when you lift
off the chimney to light the lamp try not to jar it as you
might shatter the mantle.
So if you plan to use an
Aladdin kerosene lamp you'll
want at least one spare (new) mantle for back-up (get
a spare chimney too and then you're in pretty good shape).
