Last weekend we met in the old company storage for a small indoor meeting. Winni shows the biggest and the smallest mantle lamp we had running. In his hand on the left a Coleman Luminos Exponent butane-propane lantern and my 100 year old #66 Continental Licht street light. Also some wicked lamps around, some brand new specially manufactured Uladdin shades (Ulladin because Ulla makes them and Aladdin is a registered trade mark.) Nice weekend. Erik
GREAT images Erik! I think this is the 1st time I have seen the Continental burning. The image showing the scale of the size of that monster is spot on. What does it use for a mantle? Bob
Yes, quite a nice lamp, a little unhandy perhaps but I decided it is allowed to run once in a while. I call it my bed table lamp. The original mantles were upright mantles about 4 to 4 1/2" tall and about 2" wide (at the bottom). I have a fragment of one of these so I can guess on the size. As there seems to be no way to find such mantles I run it on regular Aladdin upright mantles. So it gives maybe 2 x 50 CP instead of 1500 as it could produce. The big advantage is you can identify the things around and not only one big white spot on the image. (Positive thinking, positive thinking,... please.) I discussed the matter with Ludwig who makes his own mantles for the alcohol lights he constructs. (See here.) He told me the biggest problem is to manufacture a mantle that will "shrink" in a pre-defined way when burning it. And the allowance is about 1 - 2 mm only. He earlier succeeded in manufacturing 7 Famos type 120 CP mantles. But he told me whenever he would be in need of some massive frustration he would go into it again. He finished up with 95% junk. Erik
Can a "sock type" mantle be suspended by a wire frame and still hold together after it's burned off? If so Gasman Mantle Co. makes these HUGE mantles for the Amish for their large propane outdoor lights. Bob
I got some 2000 CP soft mantles but I did not try them out yet. I need to think about the burner details, the matching size and all. It could be a way to cut open a soft mantle, hang it over the burner and burn it. But it needs the flue (?? or draw??) of the running lamp to get it shaped. Alas, the Aladdin upright mantles are almost blown away. So I might need a counterweight. Erik
My Autolux shall have a mantle with just about exactly the same measurements you mention, and I have desperately been experimenting with the largest soft mantles. I have destroyed several 2000 cp softmantles in my attempts to make a working one, but they all eventually shrink too much, and bursts. I think we need atleast a 3000 cp to make it work in the entire length of the flame. Perhaps a 2000 might work as long as we don't stretch it all the way down to the flame spreader (in the same way as when we use those little Aladdin mantles)?
Hello Christer, This is my original Continental Licht No. 4 size upright mantle fragment. sniff sniff Erik
Too bad Erik. Atleast you got something to take measurments from. If you ever should manage to get hold of mantles that work, please let me know! I'm desperate. I once even managed to convince a company in India to make a batch for me, but they pulled out in the last moment. A long time ago someone tipped me that fishermen in some parts of the Mediterranean used propane fueled floodlights on their boats that used really large upright mantles. If this was true or not, I couldn't tell. I never managed to get any proof for it, but it could be worth to investigate further.
Hello guys, check out the links below, if there's nothing suitable, then perhaps you should contact Coleman, Jeff. http://www.thefind.com/garden/info-upright-mantle#page=1 http://www.easylivingsystems.com/gas-litemantles.htm
Thanks Jeff, but they all are of the regular, tiny gaslight mantle size. They work fair enough on Tito-Landis, HS2´s and such. Coleman, you say! Do you think they are willing to custom make smaller amounts of large upright mantles? Could perhaps be worth a try, but I'm a bit sceptical. Cheers,
Hello Christer, I'm not sure if Coleman would make them, but they know mantle makers, so perhaps they could put you in touch with them.
Don't some overseas lighthouses still use very large pressure lamps ? Not a portable lantern but a fixed installation, consisting of a pressurised oil tank connected to the burner by small bore copper pipe. It might be worth enquiring as to from where they obtain the large mantles needed. (I appreciated that this is a very old thread, but the points raised still seem to be relevant)
