You have done very well, @Bunsen_Blue The technical and other nitty-gritty details are also pretty involved in these blue-flame burners. There was at least a patent from The Mantle Lamp Company of America in which the inventor had used a heat resistant nickel-manganese alloy for the support:-
Thanks for the compliments, I may plan on making a proper mantle holder in the future but right now I’m trying to mastering the art of the incandescent mantle making. Pre burnt cone shaped incandescent mantle is notoriously hard to make due to the distortion of the skeletal ash structure due to the shrinkage of organic material during pyrolysis. I found the best way to strengthen the top of the mantle ring is to apply a solution of aluminium, magnesium and calcium chloride solution with a ratio of 1:1:1 with a concentration of 5%. Then convert the chloride to hydroxide by dipping the unburned mantle fabrics in a jar full of ammonia gas. The doping shown above slightly reduces the luminosity of the top section of the mantle but the strength increased considerably.
The burnt mantle could be protected and strengthened by dipping the burnt mantle into a thin solution of collodion which my recipe is 50% acetone, 40% diethyl ether engine starting fluid and 10% denatured alcohol. The source of the collodion is a cheap flammable guitar pick. After the treatment the bottom of the mantle can be trimmed easily without damage with a sharp pair of scissors. I’ve attached some images of a smaller cone shaped mantle which I made for my DIY upright Bunsen burner.( you can notice the smaller diameter than the standard large cone mantle for the kerosene lamp.)
@Bunsen_Blue Pre-soaking the mantle in a solution of aluminium nitrate in alcohol would also strengthen it somewhat. Unfortunately, it also reduces the luminosity of the resultant light due to alteration in the final ratios of thorium and cerium oxide contents. Uniformly smearing the mantle with chromium oxide would make the mantle pretty flexible and tough even after burnt-in. Again, it sacrifices the light output and turns the glow reddish. You can try to 'pre-fire' the pre-suspended mantle in the absence of air (actual pyrolysis in a heat resistant de-oxygenated container) to form it without too much shrinkage as oppose to the case of a normal burn. This requires a somewhat tight control. If you can find zirconyl chloride or nitrate, then a blend with the nitrate or chloride of aluminium in the right proportion range would significantly improve the strength. A very small percentage(not greater than 1%) of cerium salts would help improve the light output. Same goes for it if yttrium, calcium and magnesium salts are used. The salts of course, must readily and easily convert to their oxides upon heating. Sulphates should not be used since they require a very strong heating to transform to the oxide. A nitrocellulose colloidion or lacquer might be helpful to strengthen the pre-baked mantle for better handling before assembly into the lamp. It is known that thorium-based mantles can be very fragile.
That is quite helpful for the shape of the origional 120CP cone shaped mantle. The 120CP mantle seems to be far larger than the aladdin loxon mantle size by comparison since 120CP is more powerful than the aladdin 40CP? The weave of the mantle of the 120CP has a much smaller pore size compares to aladdin with the similar top opening sections. Hair spray will work to an extended but nitrocellulose guitar spray works better as when it burns off it does not emits as much of an odour and smoke as hairspray will. https://guitarkitfabric.co.uk/media...7/s/u/sunburstblackedge_nitrospray_1800px.jpg
Wow! that is some very useful informations. I never though you can first carbonised the mantle in an oxygen free environment. Would Carbonising an organic fibre prevent the shrinking compares to regular burning. perhaps the amount of shrinkage will be smaller than the convention method of creating the mantle by burning it in air. I still can't figure a way to carbonise a mantle that in the absent of oxygen. Perhaps in a quartz tube furnace filled with argon.
It won't shrink as much as directly burning the mantle the usual way. Imagine charcoal made from logs or cloth. There isn't much shrinkage since the end product pretty much resembles the starting material itself except that it is black, and with pores opened up. A second burn in would convert the charred mesh to the desired 'ash' skeleton but the shrinkage won't be as apparent as with the direct burn. You need not use a quartz tube for pre-firing or charring. All you need is a steel container with a lid. You also need not pre-fill it with inert gas. All you need is to leave a very small vent at the far top-end of the lid. Stuff the vent opening with some asbestos or other fibrous heat resistant materials. Fill the container with some loose-packed porous granular charcoal as bedding. Place the pre-suspended unburnt mantle on the charcoal bedding. Then close the partially vented lid. You can then heat up the steel container with a strong stove or place wood around it to make a bonfire. The charcoal bedding would help consume whatever oxygen inside the container once the contents are very hot. There won't sufficient oxygen left inside to cause the mantle to burn. The mantle would be charred in due time. It also need not necessarily be a full-char. Once its done, you can proceed the subsequent process of forming the mantle as you have carried out before.
Using a metal tin to carbonize the mantle is quite a clever idea. I’ve tried a small sections of mantle fabric in a metal box and heated it up, when the carbonized mantle burns away in air for the second burning it did reduced the amount I’d shrinkage. However the carbonized produced a lot of smoke hence I did it in a small metal box container indoor under a vent. Maybe in the future I might try to carbonize a fully shaped mantle from the mantle former with some hardening agent.
I think he made his own colloidon by dissolving a guitar pick (celluloid type) in a mixture of nitrocellulose, acetone, ethanol and diethyl ether, the first two being dissolving agents, the last two being used as thinners. Clever !
I think the progress is so far quite successful. I'm still working on perfecting the Mantle pickling solution, the pickling agent can drastically help the strength and the weight bearing of a mantle as well as the overall shape.
I've made rigid collodion. You can actually make different stiffness collodion by blending different chemicals that still produces a strong mantle. Be careful of the crystallised grain growing during evaporation, it can severely weakens a good mantle.
Thanks, collodion can be made from different nitrocellulose which including old cinema rolls that are incredibly flammable. (You need to remove all the silver halide for it to work) or even magician's flash paper.
