The Safety Lecture Or The Newbie Guide to Staying Alive In the beginning there is this filthy ancient lamp of indeterminate ancestry with a tank full of foul smelling old fuel. You might have found it on a stall at an auto jumble or swap meet and it looked interesting and cheap so you hauled it home and now you want to know what is it, how does it work and how do I make it run. Closer inspection reveals a rusty steel base plate and the pump is strange because there is no proper pump just some strange gizmo in the filler cap. First trick is to see if it can be identified. So a trawl of the web will probably take you to places like Terry Marsh’s web site Gas Pressure Lanterns, Lamps, Stoves, and Irons or the Classic Pressure Lamps web site Classic Pressure Lamps & Heaters And you see if you can find one like it. That may not find it so then you will have to ask by posting a question on one of the web sites where there are plenty of people who will likely know what you have. So now you know what it is and what fuel it uses. You have been told it runs on gasoline and was made around 1915 to 1925 ish. So right there we have some safety issues as well as potential fettling problems which will also have safety ramifications. Don’t be afraid of gasoline in lamps. I know in the UK a lot of folk are horrified at the idea of petrol but in the lamps it is as safe as kerosene. Let us start with fuel. Gasoline for an old lamp does not mean the stuff you use in a modern car. Unleaded petrol may be lead free but it still has plenty of additives that will destroy the generator of an old lamp. Originally pre WW2 gasoline lamps were designed to run on Straight-Run or White gasoline which has not been available for many years so you need to find an alternative. Easy in America because Coleman Fuel is an ideal clear naphtha that works well in these older lamps. In Europe you may find naphtha fuel sold on supermarkets as a cleaning fluid. I buy Was-Benzine in the Netherlands for instance. In the UK look in Motor factors for naphtha based Panel Wipe which is sold for cleaning car bodies prior to painting, or in some garden centres for Aspen 4T which is a clear petrol used in lawnmowers. There are safety considerations with storing and using gasoline. In the UK the law states that you can only store up to two ten litre metal containers or two five litre plastic containers of gasoline which must be clearly marked and stored away from the main living areas of a house. This actually also applies to kerosene. That means that the standard 20 litre Jerry can is not legally suitable. There is an insurance consideration here as well because most insurers will not pay a claim if you had more than the legal limit stored. Then the obvious safety rules. This is from the Fire Service web site:- • No smoking and no naked lights in the vicinity • Decant in the open air – not inside the garage • Use a pouring spout or funnel; and • If clothing is splashed with fuel, change it immediately. Petroleum vapour can cause irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, and exposure to high concentrations, particularly in confined spaces, can cause dizziness and unconsciousness. Most importantly, do not swallow petrol or diesel or attempt to use the mouth to siphon it, under any circumstances. This can result in it entering the lungs or stomach, which can be fatal. This means once you have a lamp lit you cannot safely fill another near it. OK with kerosene this is perhaps not so important but with gasoline it is a vital safety procedure. When I am taking a number of lamps for a few hours of display at an event such as the Ipswich museum or maybe an Historic Lamp Club meeting they are all filled at home and I take the filled lamps but no fuel to the display. With between fifty and a thousand burning lamps in any building cans of fuel are a huge potential hazard so I make sure I have none and I can’t be tempted to fill a lamp for myself or anyone else. Returning to your lamp the old fuel must be removed and the tank cleaned. Do not pour old fuel into the drainage system or on the ground. Fuel will float on water and a layer of explosive fuel in your sink or in the drains can be dangerous. Not on the ground either because there it will filter down to sit on top of the water table and in most places that is where your water supply comes from and for this reason dumping fuel like that is illegal. There are several suitable methods of cleaning. The simple method is to use a detergent to emulsify the old fuel but there are also cleaning fluids available such as Marine Clean which will do a good job for you. A good tip for removing hard fuel deposits in fuel feeds is to fill the tank with water and boil it. This softens the crud and makes it easier to shift. Did I mention a rusty bottom? A lot of old lamps from the 1920s and earlier have a brass tank with a steel base plate. Over the years this plate often rusts and any rust weakens the metal so it is essential to have the rust removed before any restoration is attempted and the tank is pressurised with fuel in it. You need to look inside to see if there is any corrosion to the inside of the base. Not always easy to do this but if you remove the fuel feed you will have two openings in the tank and you can apply a light to one and peer in through the other. You may not be able to see all of the plate but you will get an idea of the scale of any problems. If there is any appreciable corrosion then when cleaning it is a good idea to throw some small metal bits in there and shake them around to loosen any rust. External rust can be wire brushed off or shot blasted. The safety issue here is the corrosion will have weakened the base plate and may even have rusted through in places. The tank is a pressure vessel and in use has a volatile fuel inside which needs to stay there. In general lamps are designed to run at around 2 Bar or 30psi. If your old lamp has Coleman stamped on it then it was designed to run at 30 psi but when new would have withstood around 400 psi without failing. Therefore the base plate will still be OK even with a lot of rust. However not all old lamps are Coleman and in any case I guess we all want to die in bed so a pressure test is essential. So shut off all the openings and valves and pump the beast up ‘till your arm hurts” and shove the tank in water. At this stage you can ignore any leakage from filler caps and carefully examine the base plate for rust pin holes and the brass for any signs of stress cracks. Any hint of air leakage means repair or scrap depending on the nature and size of any leaks. Small pin holes can be repaired with an epoxy resin tank liner or by welding a plate over the weak spots. Massive stress cracks in the brass probably mean scrapping the tank but if the lamp is a kerosene burner it may be safe enough to line the tank. This is a hard call and you must make up your own mind to try to restore or scrap. It is of course essential to re test the tank after any repairs. If you are going to solder or weld onto a fuel tank it is essential that the tank has been flushed of fuel and washed out with a detergent to make sure there are no volatile fumes inside which may ignite with the heat. Exploding fuel vapour can split the tank or remove eyebrows and in any case is perhaps an excitement you can do without. OK so you have a clean repaired tank that holds pressure and now want to think about how it runs. In essence all pressure lamps operate in the same way. There is a generator or vaporiser in which the fuel is heated until it vaporises. To start the process there has to be some pre heating of this generator. The resultant gas is then blown through a small jet into an air space where it gathers air before entering a mixing space and from there to a mantle or two. In some lamps this air space is just a gap but in many it is inside a closed air intake system which may be one or two tubes and a mixing head. The air management system of castings and tubes has to be clean and smooth inside and to be sure you will have to dismantle the burner. Old lamps will have threads that are difficult to free off and it is very easy to damage the tubes when gripping them to unscrew. Trick here is to heat the burner to dull red and quench in cold water. Do this once or twice and the parts will be near enough hand tight and unscrew easily. Not really a safety issue here although do be careful applying heat to things with a blow torch as it is easy to burn stuff you had not intended to, such as curtains, table tops and fingers. Where there almost certainly is a safety issue is in the generator. Before about 1930 nearly all lamps had a generator packed with asbestos. This is not happy stuff which has serious health implications. Unfortunately asbestos is perhaps the best stuff to shove in a generator to filter the fuel, facilitate heat transfer from mantle to fuel and provide a back pressure inhibitor. You may find the generator is plugged and will not pass fuel so you will have to dismantle it and remove the asbestos cigar to either fettle or replace it. Often this sounds simple but is actually quite difficult to do because the carbon deposits will have welded the asbestos to the side walls of the generator. There are two generator types and each has its own difficulties. Older torch lighting lamps have a thick heavy straight steel tube with asbestos filling. Sometimes this is asbestos string wound round a steel core wire or it can be a braided cigar perhaps with a thin brass wire round each end. You can heat and quench this tube several times to loosen the carbon and drive the cigar out with a suitably sized rod. Later generators for match lighting lamps are a narrow thin walled brass tube often shaped with a coil or U bend. These are more difficult because of the shape. You will not be able to remove the packing in a shaped generator so first copy the shape by placing the generator on a piece of paper and drawing round it. Then heat and quench to anneal the brass and straighten the tube. Now you can either run a drill down the tube or possibly the cigar will drive out with a wire rod. Once the generator is cleaned and repacked you heat and quench again and then re shape the tube using the drawing you made as a template. Either way there is an important safety issue here because you are playing with asbestos. At all stages when the asbestos is exposed you need to be wearing a mask and it is best of the asbestos is wetted with water to endure you don’t breathe in any loose fibres. This is from the Health and Safety Executive guidance sheet EM9 Any asbestos product or material that is ready for disposal is defined as asbestos waste. Asbestos waste also includes contaminated building materials, tools that cannot be decontaminated, personal protective equipment and damp rags used for cleaning. If in doubt, always treat waste as ‘Hazardous’ or ‘Special’. You can discharge waste water that may be contaminated with traces of asbestos to the sewage system. For our purposes disposal is not really a problem as the quantity is small and if you burn the asbestos to bright orange heat for a while it will break down to a small quantity of loose fibre that can be considered to be a trace amount that can be mixed with water and flushed into the sewage system. OK so now we have an empty tube that needs packing with either a new asbestos cigar or some suitable substitute. In the heavy tubes you can use tightly rolled brass mesh to fill the tube or glass fibre or perhaps a combination of the two. In the thin walled brass tubes glass fibre can be used. This is not as good as asbestos but is safer to play with and more importantly available which asbestos is not. So now you have fettled the tank and dealt with any leaks. The burner is clean and the generator fettled so now reassemble the lamp and do one final test. Pump up to full pressure and immerse in water. Check all over for leaks and operate all the controls to make sure the glands are not leaking and the lamp is discharging air where it should from the gas tip and nowhere else. Last job is to add fuel and go for a burn. First time do this without mantles and at a low pressure. Pre heat the generator and play a small flame across the mantle holders to see if you get a nice blue Bunsen flame. A good blue flame and we are good to go so fit mantles and fire it up. There is no reason why an old lamp cannot be restored to function but do think about what you are doing and make safety assessments all the time. Enjoy your lamp fettling but Let’s be careful out there. Neil McRae.
@Mackburner A very good artical for beginners, i was there once. To the newbie lantern/lamp lovers please read this and take on Neils advice. Please do not be complacent, even accidents happen to the most experienced.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to share this information for anyone genuinely interested. Incredible amount of information shared and I will be referencing back to this again. Newbie looking forward to learning more.
Matti, those are made of stainless steel, and thus not magnetic. It's generally better to use something where you can take a magnet to pick up the last ones with. Most lamp tanks are constructed in a manner that make it hard to get the last few pieces out, and then a small magnet on a stick down the filler hole will do the trick. Personally I prefer small screws and nuts. I will think that the sharper edges on those are better to remove rust and crud than spherical objects like bearing balls and such. And there's always (magnetic) screws and nuts laying about.
Hi I am dont think I understand where is the asbestos... From the tank there is a brass tube with a needle inside which ends in the "niple" on top of the tube... then it goes to brass U shape tube which ands on thing like shower head (from ceramic or not?) And then there on the showerhead there is a mantle tied up... Should I be woried that I have the asbestos one? Thnaks for your answers
The tube with an internal wire and a nipple is the generator. Asbestos was commonly used by manufacturers as a heat transfer and filter material inside generators. Just about any old pre 1930 gasoline lamp made as torch or match lighting will have asbestos packing inside the generator or vaporiser (Vergasser) and it continued to be common in kero generators for many years after that. Some may have a pricker wire inside as well which has asbestos wrapped around the wire. If you find a generator tube with a fibre filling it is likely to be asbestos and the older the lamp the more likely it will be. The use of asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999 but it was recognised as a medical risk long before that and I don’t know when companies such as Coleman stopped using it but as far as I remember they were still selling Quick-Lite generators with asbestos packing in 2000. ::Neil::
Both of the above are Words To Live By. Here are a few more... >>>>> "This lamp has no brain => USE YOUR OWN !" <<<<<
Before I do this, can someone please confirm? Obviously with no fuel, but immerse the entire tank, along with valve assembly, generator, and burner assembly? Or only up to a specific height that I may have missed?
There's no need to include the burner assembly, just the tank, valve assembly and generator. Whilst under water, place a finger firmly on the end of the generator and open the valve, tighten the gland nut a little if air bubbles appear.
Hello everyone.Thanks for the article and will be taking note of the above. A problem that should not be overlooked: I want to add the MANTLES radioactivity problem. I know that the old mantles contain radioactive material. After having seen, by chance, a video on YouTube I asked myself, (and I do not hide, as an inexperienced person, my concern in the use and conservation, while waiting to use them, of old Auer mantles which among other things I keep preserved in a plastic box. I wonder if use and storage could have health effects in the long run. I don't deny that I've thought about getting rid of it but I don't know how. Am I exaggerating in thinking all this??? Of course your opinions are certainly welcome. Sorry for my english: google does everything
Hi Onafest. They are not "highly" radioactive. The main form of radiation from Thorium (the radioactive coating on older mantles) is alpha articles or rays. Alpha sources are not normally a problem unless you ingest them. The advice is simple: Don't eat them, don't do your initial burn indoors, and don't breathe in the dust from old mantles when you dispose of them. Wash your hands after handling them. You can keep your supply of mantles in a metal box and away from children. A metal box will stop the apha particles. Radionuclide Basics: Thorium | US EPA Incandescent Gas Lantern Mantles | Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity
I am neither a chemist nor an expert in nuclear physics issues (I am just an ordinary person infected with the "lamp virus"; thinking of purchasing an efficient radioactivity indicator for verification is expensive. I learn from the web that: Mantello al torio - New Radioactivity Forum "The gas lamp screens containing Thorium do not emit large quantities of Gamma radiation, but have a high emission of Beta and, mainly, Alpha radiation. These particles, as previously mentioned, are easily shielded by the skin, but if inhaled they can lead to tumor cells, and the problem with those screens consisted precisely in the combustion of these small particles (especially at the first ignition, where many of them were released) and at the risk of the net crumbling, especially when it is removed it is very easy, as we well know, for it to crumble, indeed, it is almost inevitable! Recognizing them without instruments is not at all easy, if not impossible, the only relatively "useful" data may be knowledge of the production date, generally if before the 1970s it could most likely be a Thorium mesh, however if there is no trust me, put it away safely." KEEP IT SAFE. Exactly how to do it? Too many doubts!?! Safety first. I love lamps. I think the quickest way to remove any doubt is to get rid of it (legally). I will only keep those certified "non-radioactive". Greetings and good work
The Hidden Radioactive Danger of Mantle Lamps – Mother Earth News (true/false or to be read with due caution)
You should not be concerned but care full is always good. I have several geiger counters and I am in the process of making a reference chart (WWW.PETROMAX.NL - RADIATION) Take in account that these are Gamma reading, I have to do another run for the beta and Alpha emission. It is as @Fireexit1 writes: don't eat them. But also don't stack a dozen in your trousers all year long. Exposure time is another point. As for usage: when broken and you have to remove them: do it outside, use a plastic bag ( like the one for the doggy shit) over your grab hand, grab the mantle, turn the bag inside out, so that the mantle remains get IN the bag, close the bag carefully so that fibres don't escape and dispose in normal trash. There is no need to get worried, radiation is all around us and when you live in a hard place ( stone, mountains) there may be even more natural radiation then you know. And then: why radiation? Do you think that the kerosene over your hands is good for your health ? Kerosene is skin penetrating and, I guess, more harmful then the gas mantle.
nice answer, actually mantles don't taste good, even if you add a little kerosene I want to clear up one more doubt. Modern production mantles still have the same problem I talked about in previous posts? To be clear, those mantles that have "non-radiactive" on the label. We can trust the manufacturers? If you give me an answer i will be grateful and therefore i will stop with this catchphrase. Have a nice weekend
Yttrium is now used. But some mantles of modern production are still thorium. Also there are lots of older mantles in circulation. I treat them all the same.
I’m not sure at all “what problem” you are talking about, therefore what it is you want to “trust the manufacturer for”, but: There are many different makers of mantles. I must have at least 10 brands and half a dozen non-branded types of mantles. Some of the branded mantles say radioactive, or non-radioactive, or specify thorium, or yttrium, and some have no mention of elements or radioactivity. The unbranded ones could be anything. I treat them all the same: Stored together; in boxes; and away from working spaces and food. I am very careful of the dust of burned mantles. It is very obvious that some mantles burn with a whiter light than others, and that the thorium mantles burn with whiter light than yttrium mantles. This is obvious to me where I am running now a Coleman two mantle table lamp with one Peerless thorium mantle and one “non-radioactive” Coleman mantle. I am a prefer to work with “white” light than the reddish and yellowish hues of some mantles, so generally prefer thorium mantles, and treat them accordingly. Tony
