Selfsufficientish.com

Had to use some candles recently, some power cuts coming our way so this might be of some use to know perhaps.

Lehmans.com (american site) show a range of Olive oil lamps. Basically glass jars with lids (to turn them off and store them) They say that Olive oil is odourless and safe, it won't catch fire even if tipped over.

The inventive part of the lamp is a wide wick on a steel element giving off good light. I would guess a strip of tinplate (bean tin) would make the wick holder, any ideas on a simple wide wick? Also can use other veg oils, grease and fat, but Olive Oil is the most pleasant I guess.

Practical they say, can burn up to 20hrs, 160z screw top jar, big or small as you like. Can't see any HSE problems. Paraffin? was used once in those brass lamps with glass tops to the burners.

John

Sound good ! have read somwhere that veg oil cokes up wicks v quickly,dont know if that applys to olive oil ? A.

http://www.worldwideflood.com/ark/techn ... _lamps.htm - these look interesting!

http://www.winelight.com/ I like this idea!

Our back-up lights include two paraffin lanterns and an oil lamp...



The wide wick in the lamp works best with mineral oil, but you get a tolerable (non-reading) light with rapeseed oil. Olive oil doesn't work.

You can extract oil from pine trees and use this, but I've not yet tried it. The best way of doing it is as a by-product of charcoal making - you build a charcoal retort with outlet pipes and valves. As the wood is cooked indirectly, it gives off gas. You cool this until it liquifies, then separate by distillation into oil, wood turpentine, creosote and tar. Sounds difficult!

(And yes, still on hold to the electricity company!!!)

I found the following link

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/327/


an oil lamp made from old unsevicable light bulbs what a great idea

Quite a while back I got interested in this topic and did a fair bit of reading around ...

Apparently, the reason why kerosene took over from olive and other plant oils was due to its lower viscosity - it flows more easily and doesn't clog up the wick as much. This means that it gets sucked up by the wick and hence can be used in the classic kero lamp design, which has the oil source directly below the lamp.

Earlier designs for lamps burning plant oils involved springs or weights to force the more viscous oil up the wick. Less complicated versions were 'gravity fed', that is, they had the burning end at a lower level than the well (container for oil). The classic kero lamp, in contrast, is 'capillary fed' (fuel sucked up by the wick). The problem with these designs was that the well could not be used to support the wick, like the classic kero lamp. (The last commercially produced olive oil lamp was called the 'Solar', produced around 1820, IIRC.)

We have used olive oil lamps quite a bit, not as a self-sufficientish fans, but as Roman re-enactors. Models have been found in this country and all over the Roman empire- you often find reproductions in your local museum (where we got ours)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_lamp
kind thoughts
Deb