incandescent experiment

dylanwinter

dylanwinter

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www.keepturningleft.co.uk
when you light a Tilley the meths produces enough heat to make the mantle start producing some light

an Alladin uses a wick to burn a mantle hot enough to produce light

what other substances start emitting heat as soon as they get hot enough

but are toughter than mantle material

could I mount something in the flame of the Duplex that would improve its light output

other than a mantle of course

D
 
You need a blue flame burner to get a mantle hot enough to incandesce. That can run on paraffin, alcohol, petrol or gas - all are used. Some people use panel wipe in some pressure lamps. The Aladdin is the only remaining wick burner that has a blue flame. The other blue flame burners use vaporised (or gaseous) fuel coming out of a jet under pressure. The yellow flame of a duplex isn't hot enough.

The reason mantles are fragile is that they are made of ash. Some gas mantles are a bit more robust with a ceramic framework, but the liquid fuel lamp mantles have to be the way they are in order to work. A good way of keeping mantles intact once they have been used, and if you aren't planning to use them again for a while, is to spray them with cheap hairspray. You'll need to flash the mantle off before you light the lamp again - just let the flame of a match touch it and watch a small ball of fire - that's what you have to do on first use for an Aladdin anyway, so it's no big deal. (Aladdin mantles are pre-burnt to shape them, then lacquered. Pressure lamp mantles burn on first use and shape themselves into a ball as they burn)
 
I think paraffin lamp mantles seem even more fragile than they are because the lamp has a dirty great hole that allows the wind to get in. I've not noticed the mantle being particularly fragile on gas or electronic ignition petrol lamps, which both have far better "draught proofing".
 
When I was VERY small, we sometimes visited two great-aunts, who still lived in a house lit by gas, with a radio that worked off wet batteries. This would have been in the early to mid 1950s. I recall that the gas-mantles used with town gas were rigid - I strongly suspect they were made from asbestos thread, on which the thorium oxide was deposited.

As others have said, a yellow flame isn't hot enough to work an incandescent mantle. What is more, the mantle will cool the flame so that soot is deposited on the mantle.
 
Ref posts 3 and 5
See Dylan's previous thread on pressure lamps. They used to be radioactive, now they're not. There never was a significant risk to the lamp user, the risk was to the people in the mantle factory.

Ref post 4
There's no difference in the draught resistance of paraffin or petrol pressure lamps, or the equivalent gas lantern (such as Camping Gaz) - the basic engineering is the same, as are the mantles. It's the jet and burner design that's different. Wick burner incandescent paraffin lamps such as the Aladdin were never intended to be used outside, so wind tolerance never was an issue. It's ceramics that make hard gas mantles robust, asbestos thread was used for heater mantles which glow red/yellow, not white.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
When I was VERY small, we sometimes visited two great-aunts, who still lived in a house lit by gas, with a radio that worked off wet batteries. This would have been in the early to mid 1950s.
Click to expand...

Fred drift alert! How did such households (I stayed with a similar one in the Shetlands c1960) charge the batteries for their radios? (I've often wondered since.)
 
LittleSister said:
Fred drift alert! How did such households (I stayed with a similar one in the Shetlands c1960) charge the batteries for their radios? (I've often wondered since.)
Click to expand...

An answer which I just happen to know. (Don't ask how; it really was before my time.) The local radio shop would have a battery charging facility. One of the weekly chores for youngsters was to take the wet battery down to the shop to swap for a charged one. Bit like we swap gas bottles nowadays.
 
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LittleSister said:
Fred drift alert! How did such households (I stayed with a similar one in the Shetlands c1960) charge the batteries for their radios? (I've often wondered since.)
Click to expand...

john_morris_uk said:
An answer which I just happen to know. (Don't ask how; it really was before my time.) The local radio shop would have a better charging facility. One of the weekly chores for youngsters was to take the wet battery down to the shop to swap for a charged one. Bit like we swap gas bottles nowadays.
Click to expand...

The plot thickens - there were no shops on the island! Perhaps sent them on the steamer to Lerwick and got them back a week or two later.
 
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