I ordered these from a seller on Ebay - advertised as 8x6cm. At £3.17 all in for 10 I thought worth a try: The pictures tell the story. Short strings meant fiddly but not impossible to put on. I tried them on a 285 and a 288. I could have done better on the 288 but it works. They seem to end up slightly larger than the genuine Coleman #21. I have lit the 285 4 times with no apparent damage. Compared to the £8.00 per 4 that genuine spares seem to be sold for I am happy.
If you manage to tie them on they are not bad. But the strings are totally scrap, too short, slippery and split, which makes tying extremely fiddly, But the price is seducing, thar's how Chinese trading works. I won't buy again Matthias
After 10 re-lights the mantles on the 285 are still going well. Good light and I think easier to light. However the fiddly nature (and my fat fingers) led to one mantle on the 288 dropping off, after some disconcerting whistling noises...
Get someone with slender fingers to tie them. Someone who's used to needle and thread works. I've tried some of the green ones. From my experience so far, they actually glowed brighter or at least whiter than the Coleman #21.
In the absense of any labour source with smaller fingers I will try wire next. I have a roll of something similar to freezer bag ties for garden use. The covering strips off easily. The mantle that dropped off was surprisingly "springy" and had shown no signs of damage. Notwithstanding the short string which can fray the actual mantles seem good so far...
Once the mantle has been burnt-in, the tie-strings actually serve very little, if any, purpose. The upper part of the mantle would have already shrunk around the 'neck' of the burner cap and that is usually sufficient to hold it in place. Anyway, if anyone would like to use a piece of wire in place of the tie-string, I'd suggest ni-chrome wire, which is pretty heat-resistant and malleable enough as an initial wrap. They're used as heating elements for toasters and heaters. They are not too difficult to obtain although not exactly available everywhere. As for myself, I'd just use a piece of asbestos string if necessary. This is of course not the obvious choice for those concerned about the potential dangers.
I have a few 10 packs of these ... now just forget about the crappy fiddly tie strings that the Chinee put on them ... just wip it out in a flash... now a large size darning needle with.... this wire ... 5/10/15 amp fuse wire , threaded through the eye of the needle ... sew it on the margin and though the mantle weave .. around the circumference of the mantle edges ( double over if you like )hey ho ..presto ... you can cut it to length ( scissors) , hold and tie it .... Works ticekty boo and the cotton mantle fabic holds up as well. I have down a few Tilleys ... others... with this method
Some great tips there... I think I will have to try the darning needle trick at some point though... That reminds me of an old table lamp I found that used old gas lamp mantles ; they were held on with copper wire.
So the mantles on the 288 have failed after about 35 hours. The check valve on the 285 died taking it out of the testing. As you can see on photo no2, one got thin on the sidewall, and the bottom blew out of another. Luckily my Yttrium 2C-HG Peerless mantles have arrived from New Zealand so I can try them next.
I agree in terms of the price/convenience trade-off. If a catastrophically burst or holed mantle results in a cracked globe they cease to be a bargain. True, a quality mantle can develop a hole - many firings on hopefully - but ones I’ve had that have done so haven’t failed with such a gaping hole as that. Still, they didn’t wreck the globe on that occasion I suppose.
No globes were harmed in this production but some heatshields were 'tested' ! Anyway it was all a bit of fun. I think that the old maxim "you get what you pay for" maybe is also proven.
