Lantern Types and Fuels

I remember the older hunters years ago saying that an old kerosene lantern made the best deer blood trail lights. They would take tin foil and make a semi shroud to make the light shine forward. They never used any other kind of light.

Lehman's has great selection of lantern an lamp replacement wicks and globes .

I have a couple of the W.T. Kirkman brand #2 Champion cold blast oil lanterns. They hold about 30 ozs. of lamp oil or K1 Kerosene and will burn 24 plus hours on a tank. Some morning when I off work, and it's still dark out, I like to light my lantern and just enjoy the ambient light while I have my coffee.

I remember being a bit shocked when I found out that commercial lamp oil freezes. Particularly since at the time I really needed it in a not-frozen state. I use several cold blast types for camping and power outages. One trick I'll share is to take out the globe and mask off half and paint the other half silver or white. Not as good as an actual reflector but it does increase the light output on the one side, which is handy for doing fiddley work where you might need a bit more light as well as when using the lamp while walking so the painted side keeps you from being blinded while the open side lights your path. Another tip is if you have to sit in the cold for awhile and you have a heavy poncho or cloak along with your lantern you can put the lantern down between your feet and let the heat fill the cloak/ poncho like a tiny personal hot tent.

Feuerhand is without doubt a very nice lamp!

I live in the PNW now, so I don't use it as much, but when I was living in Florida, I would use citronella oil in one lamp that I hung just in front of my tent entrance. It did a great job of keeping bugs from getting into the tent, when I was getting in and out of it ... day and night. Yeah, I burned it during the daylight hours too. It even worked out well on a small island along the intracoastal waterway. That's a bugtastic environment. Thanks for the tip on the collector item. I do like me some old stuff.

The knowledge about using raccoon and possum lard as lantern fuel was news to me but explains why possum raccoon honey was so popular with the old timers when I was a child. I thought it was because they grew up making extra money selling raccoons skins which I could understand but if they could also take use that fat to make essentially free lantern oil than that is two profitable resources of one animal and could go a long way and poor rural areas like the coal mining and farming community I grew up In. It also goes a long way to explain why their spouses tolerated the activity beyond eliminating a nuisance animal. Those hunters were not only bringing home additional income with first they are also eliminating household expenses in the free lantern oil.

W.T. Kirkman lantern is a good resource for parts.

Paraffin oil has been quite difficult to locate locally for the past year. If anyone has a “Hobby Lobby” nearby, they presently have their paraffin oil on sale half price. Grabbed several of them yesterday. For use inside a residence, I usually use it.

My grandparents called the "coal oil lights / lanterns". I always called them hurricane lanterns.

These lanterns were still in use in Eastern tennessee when I was a kid. I have three still in use, a ww2 Dietz, and two from Germany. All three will burn about any lite oil. They contributed a great deal to the demise of whales thru the early twentieth century, as whale was cheap and burned clean.

Great breakdown, I enjoyed this video 👍

I had to use a coal oil (what my Grandpa called kerosene aka heating fuel oil) lantern as the only light source in the barn when I was a kid in ND. I have one newer lantern and multiple oil lamps. Would love to find an Aladdin. Mr. Canterbury, perhaps show the folks the proper way to trim the wick and adjustment. Thanks for your research and sharing.

Diesel stinks, but works well too. Some people cut thicker vegetable type oils with kerosene or diesel to help it wick, and to extend their fuel for a few more hours of light. Appreciate you, Dave!

Tested a mini lamp that had fuel in it for around 20 years...still worked (I'm going to try to test it again, 20 years later). Couldn't say the same for a battery powered flashlight.

5 days of rain all the solar stuff wasn't charging. Was so thankful to have my oil lamps at camp. I burn tiki torch fuel with citronella in it.

My father worked for the railroad and had several of those railroad lanterns. My mom still has them.

Great video as always David... Didn't know about the air flowing in those lamps and how it works even though I have one. What I would like to add is that Citronella oil it's also good to burn with any of those lamps, and it works as a mosquito repellent too... Even inside the tent or house. Only that there are 3 types of citronella oil : one for outside, one mid and one for indoors. First one it's more poisoned or toxic than the last one, and it works just fine for repellent, only that we don't get intoxicated. Last but not least for y'all... don't try olive oil as fuel for this lamps... The wick must be in 45° angle and in contact with tha "wall" of the pot to help the olive oil rich to the top of the tip of the wick as good old Hebrews lamps use to be, for it to burn properly. Cheers Martin from Argentina🇦🇷 by the way. GOD bless y'all...

I like the old railroad lanterns,those Adam and Westlake are just 🥰🙂👍🏻

It's a purely aesthetical thing, but on my oil lanterns, I take out the glass and spray them with 'frosted glass' spray paint. The flame becomes much more of a glow that way.