I was wondering if the mantle has any other role besides giving a bright light in a Tilley x246, e.g. cleaner burn? I plan to dedicate one lamp to boat heating and thought about running it without a mantle.
Well, yes. It produces an incandescent white light rather than a naked flame, which, on a boat seems rather important… That would be a radiator, like a Tilley R1. Once again, no naked flame. Tony
Thank you Tony, mantle stays. Strong white light is not very important as I'd keep one lamp with mantle anyway.
This might not be the answer you want, but as far as intended roles are concerned, the mantles serve no other primary roles except to glow with incandescence for the light. The other secondary(not really intended during design stages) roles are:- -containing the flames so that they don't impinge on other parts of the lantern. Globes, frames, to name some. The 'contained' flame also has lesser tendencies of blowing itself out and could better or more consistently heat up the generators for sustained vaporization of the fuel. The end effect can be a cleaner overall burn but this is not really part of the primary role. Some studies have shown that under certain conditions, the oxides in the mantles could catalytically improve oxidation of the fuel during the burn but that's only true within a narrow fuel-air ratio range as well as fuel-air flowrates. Not that important in practical usage, I'd say. The open flame of a properly functioning lantern(Tilley X246 in your case) would be non-luminous pale blue. It doesn't radiate much heat as compared to a red, orange or yellow luminous flame. You can replace the mantle with a metal mesh or asbestos mesh so that it glows more in the infrared/red spectrum. That would provide a lot more radiant heat than the open flame.
Many thanks! Shifting more radiation to IR is a very interesting aspect, I'd be careful though not to overheat the glass.
