Everything you need to know about using a traditional Paraffin / Kerosene Lantern.
First of all some definitions:
In Britain we use the word “Paraffin” where most of the world prefers “Kerosene”. We mean the same thing, a flammable hydrocarbon liquid commonly used as a fuel. To avoid confusion online, I will try to use the word Kerosene in this article.
There is a long running debate about the difference between a “Lamp” and a “Lantern”. I'm not going to get into all that but for simplicity, when I refer to a Lantern, I think of an enclosed light source that is meant to be portable. When I refer to a Lamp, I think of a light source that is that is intended to be stationary. There is some cross over but it is generally a good rule.
Of course, using so many lanterns also requires a little knowledge to get the best out of them.
Let's talk a little about Kerosene. Early lamps were made to burn lots of flammable fuels but Kerosene started to replace most of them in the Nineteenth Century.
Compared to some of its contemporary rivals it was safer. Unlike Naphtha ( Gasoline, Petrol, etc. ) or Alcohol ( Spirit, Ethanol, Meths etc. ), Kerosene does not produce an explosive or flammable vapour at normal temperatures. This made it an ideal fuel for household use and replaced Whale Oil which was becoming more expensive at this time.
Types of Lantern
There are four main types of kerosene lantern that are regularly encountered.
Here you can see two tubular lanterns either side of a lamp.
One of the most magical moments is a Steam Tent camp is lighting up time.
We have lots of lamps and lanterns in our camps and it’s easier to light them up in the twilight, before it gets fully dark. At this time there is still enough ambient light to safely see what we are doing but it is dim enough that the lanterns shine out against the gloaming.
This is also the very best time to photograph the camp because most cameras can still capture the full range of brightness between the fading ambient light and the lantern light before it gets too dark.
The first “hot blast” system used the rising hot air to draw fresh air into the lantern which was fed into tubes at the top which returned this mixture of air to the burner at the bottom.
A few years later this was improved with the “cold blast“ system which expelled the depleted hot air, which contained less oxygen, but used it’s heat to propel clean fresh air through the tubes to the burner. This made the flame brighter, was more efficient and is now the dominant system that has been copied by lantern makers all over the world.
The next development was the pressure lantern which, as the name suggests, used a pressurised system to vaporise the fuel and provides the brightest light of all. These are beyond the scope of this article as we find them noisy and the brightness far too harsh for the atmosphere of our camps.
Globes and Chimneys
“Short” and ”Tall” profile globes for lanterns next to a lamp chimney.
I'm assuming your lamp or lantern is enclosed with glass of some kind. On a tubular lantern it is usually referred to as a globe, on a table style dead flame lamp it is known as the chimney.
Whatever the form of the glass, it does need to be cleaned from time to time.
You may often see smoky brown lantern globes on the TV but this is often because a properly functioning lamp or lantern in the frame would be too bright for a film camera to deal with. ( It may also just be a result of ignorant use with the flame set far too high, which quickly soots up the globe unless it breaks it first. )
Even a well maintained lantern will build up a fine layer of soot which slowly degrades the light produced by the flame.
Removing the glass varies from lamp to lamp or lantern but is usually not difficult.
A gentle wipe inside and out with a paper towel in soapy water is often all that is needed but more stubborn marks can usually be shifted with the type of plastic scouring pad used for dishwashing.
Whatever you are using, be careful of the edges of the glass. Most modern lamp glasses have unfinished edges which can be very sharp. Many of the older glasses and some of the better modern ones like Feuerhand have smooth edges which are much easier to work with.
Trimming the Wick
The wick is one of the most important parts of your lamp. It transports fuel up from the tank or “font“ by capillary action. When the liquid fuel reaches the heat of the flame it is then vaporized and it combusts. Your wick must of course be long enough to reach the bottom of the font when the burner is in place otherwise the fuel at the bottom cannot be used.
The top edge of the wick can sometimes get encrusted with carbon deposits, especially if the lamp has been allowed to burn out due to lack of fuel in the font. This needs to be trimmed off with a sharp pair of scissors. The shape of the wick in the burner will have an effect on the shape of the flame in use.
Most online sources I have seen recommend just cutting the wick straight across, at 90° to the length but this often leaves a slight overhang on either side which will produce an irregular shape to the flame. That makes it smoky and causes the glass to soot up again.
Trimming away the top corners of the wick slightly at 45° will reduce this problem considerably. Not much at all , maybe 2mm or 1/16“ is all it takes but it makes a big difference.
Occasionally you may find a lantern with a wick that has dropped out of the bottom of the burner or has no wick at all. On a new burner with a new wick this is no great problem. If the wick is dry, first of all soak it in some kerosene, which will help to lubricate it in the burner, then thread the wick into the bottom of the burner while turning the adjustment wheel to grab the wick and feed it to the top. Sounds easy but sometimes it is not that simple.
An older burner can sometimes be a little rusty inside or sometimes the wick is just a tight fit and doesn’t want to go through. In these cases I take a needle and some strong thread and pass it through the wick and tie it off in a loop. I then feed the loop through the burner so that I have got something that I can pull the wick through with, helping the wick feed wheel do it’s job. Generally once the end is through it will work fine.
Filling your lantern.
It is tempting to try and pour as much fuel as possible into your lamp or lantern but this is not a good idea. Fuel will expand as it gets heated and if the font is already brimming with fuel that can cause it to overflow, flooding the burner and possibly even leaking out.
For most lamps, fuelling them to a level just below the filling hole when it is sitting on a level surface is the right amount. If your lamp is filled from the top by taking the burner off, then you need to leave a space of about 12mm / ½“ at the top of the font.
A small funnel can make this job easier but also makes it difficult to see the level in the font. There are special fuel bottles with nozzles which work well but I usually fill my lanterns with an old teapot which I find very practical. ( Don't try and use it for tea afterwards though ! ).
Lighting the lantern and setting the flame.
Depending on the type of lamp or lantern you are using you may use a match, spill or lighter to light the wick. It may be necessary to wind the wick up a little when first lighting it and then wind it back down to it's burning position. You want a small flame at first, it will tend to grow stronger when the burner warms up.
After a few minutes you can turn it up a little for more brightness but do not over do it. There is a point at which the flame starts to thin at the top and will start to smoke and if left too high like that you will soon have that movie and TV look as your globe soots up. You may also get sound effects as the globe cracks or even shatters.
If you look for that smoke point and then turn it down a little until the flame is more consistent, you are then working at the maximum brightness that your lamp is designed for. However, running any machine at it's maximum all the time is rarely a good idea. Not only are you using lots of fuel, you are not actually getting that much more light for it.
I tend to run my lamps and lanterns with quite a moderate flame, I rarely need to buy new globes and can see perfectly well when moving around the camp.
The slight unevenness that you can see in the flame on the middle and right images may also be an indication that the wick need some trimming. ( This is a very narrow wick which is difficult to get exactly right. )
Sometimes, if you are using an older lantern or one that has been in storage for a while you may notice the flame growing and shrinking in a kind of pulsing effect. It took me a while to realise what was happening the first time I saw this but the answer was that the air tubes, running from the top of the lantern to the air chamber above the font and under the burner had become blocked. In my case it was an accumulation of spider webs from a couple of very busy arachnids that had nested in the lantern since I had last used it. I cleared the tubes with some bent wire but a small air tube hooked up to a pump of some kind does an excellent job of clearing out such problems.
When it comes to the time to extinguishing your lantern out there are a few of options. If the lamp has an open topped chimney then a quick blow down the chimney will usually do the trick. For a lantern, the flame needs to be exposed to blow it out by either lifting the globe if it has a mechanism for doing so or opening the lantern by whatever other actions that requires.
Beware, this is the most dangerous point of handing a lantern. The glass and metalwork close to and above the flame will be very hot. Touching it even briefly may leave you with a nasty burn. On an older style “Hot Blast” tubular lantern the side tubes can become quite hot too.
Sometimes a better option is the turn the wick down to starve it of air. The flame will shrink almost to nothing and then go out. Don't turn it down too far or you may end up having to fish your wick out of the font and threading it in again.
Sometimes, if I know the lamp is almost empty and I want to transport it home dry, I may let it burn out overnight. The penalty for that, apart from wasting fuel of course, is that the end of the wick will char up badly when the fuel runs out and is likely to need trimming before using again. The alternative is to empty the font directly by pouring fuel out of the filling hole into a container. I use the teapot again and then pour it back into the fuel can that I transport the kerosene in.
Transporting the lanterns.
Many people look at the glass in a lantern and assume that it is far too delicate to transport. This belittles decades of design improvements to allow storm lanterns to be used and handled in quite harsh conditions, the clue is in the name.
That does not mean a little care is not required though.
I transport most of my lanterns in crates or boxes and in most cases, providing the lanterns are not free to move around that is quite sufficient. For some of the more valuable lanterns I may add simple dividers, made of scrap cardboard, between the lanterns to protect any plating or paint finish.
I am now moving from the plastic crates I used to use, over to wooden crates, not only are they more robust but the expedition huts used by Scott and Shackleton in Antarctica are a masterclass of ingenuity when it comes to reusing crates as furniture.
The simplest form is known as a dead flame lantern. This means that the lamp or burner is protected from the wind by an enclosure but the flame is only provided with air through a passive system of air holes in the lantern.
This simple system dominated from antiquity right up to 1868 when John Irwin invented the tubular lantern to force feed air to the burner which produced a brighter flame.
