So yes I'm on the power grid with running water and everything. Spoiled rotten and loving it but how to keep the off grid love alive while inhabiting the urban life. Well my husband Brendan and I had great fun putting together these bottle lamps that look very decorative when not needed and are fully functional lamps when the power isn't available. So glass bottle with pretty glass rocks in it is a burb decorating staple. Add some clear fuel a wick kit and voila. Decoration become preparation.
I'm a bit of a fire bug, and a lamp loon. I work with pressurized gasoline and kerosene every day, and I like your creativity. Form past experience I'd like to raise a couple concerns. The bottle is beautiful, but it may not be entirely heat tolerant with the flame so near. If it breaks the glass and spills fuel it could get rather exciting on the kitchen table. I've built burners for applications where heat tolerance of the fuel vessel was a concern, by just raising the exposed portion of the wick. Running the wick through a metal tube will raise it above the bottle, and keep the glass cool enough to avoid fractures. The choice of fuel in a wick lamp is a concern. The ideal fuel would produce no smoke or smell, be self extinguishing if the bottle was tipped over, or was broken. The idea fuel also wouldn't expand and push fuel up the wick of a non-vented container. With a flash point of 437 degrees, olive oil takes all the excitement out of house fires, but it makes wonderful odorless light. (Whale oil had a slightly higher flash point and was the lighting oil of choice before kerosene.) I've never had an issue with olive oil, even in unsealed Betty lamps. I can't say the same for kerosene or gasoline, and I've had some pretty intense moments with both of these fuels under pressure and on fire in lamps, lanterns and stoves. A flaming stream of gasoline isn't exactly the sort of thing you want on the kitchen table. I thank you for sharing your new lamp, and just want to help you learn from my rather dramatic mistakes. If you enjoy off-grid lighting and wish to step it up a notch or more, I'd invite you to have a look at my Gas Pressure Appliance album. Gas Pressure Appliances and other lamps and lanterns | Survival Monkey Forums
Something else your creative lamps may be useful for, besides light and possibly heat in a grid-down situation is repelling mosquitoes. Even my white gas lamps get a 20-25% shot of citronella oil in the spring. These are strictly outside lights, since we still depend on window screens and fly swatters for bug defense indoors, but it will keep bugs away from the doors so you can slip in and out.
Thank you so much! I love the idea of cutting the lamp oil with citronella. I haven't tried olive oil myself but I like what you are saying though and I'll incorporate it into my 2.0 model.
My town is more village than burb, but the village staple here is solar landscape lights. We get a lot of power outages here, primarily due to high winds, and as a result just about everyone has a bunch of those solar landscape lights all around the front of their house and in the backyard as well. Looks pretty, and if the power goes down they get yanked up and brought inside for light after the sun goes down. If you're the crafty sort you can make all sorts of neat lamps with even the cheap $1 ones, from simple mason jar lights to hanging chandeliers. Best part of them for me is my clumsy azz won't knock them over and burn my house down. I have some that have been lighting up every night for 11 years... I know this because I just changed the battery on one the other day and it was dated 2009 lol.
Lol someone also mentioned in a home defense situation these are easily converted to Molotov cocktails. But I live in Cedar Park Texas we are boring burbs and I think we like it that way.
"Converted" being the key word. Refueled specifically.... at least we hope you're not fueling them with anything that makes more than an oily mess if the bottle is smashed.
in regard to oil lamps and candles indoors - really anything open flame - make sure to have some velcro self stickers for the lamp and solid surface >>> especially important if you have smaller children <<<<< shouldn't be using these types of lighting for maneuvering around a dark house - stick them to a table or fireplace mantle for semi-permanent room lighting .... in regard to urban combat and improvising fuels - you want more DIY napalm than 100% liquid fuel >>> a sticky & burn is better in close quarters than a spreading burning pool ...
Yeah I would tell them that throwing a molotov cocktail around your house is a bad idea. It's easy enough to set your own self on fire tossing those things outside in a parking lot, let alone through a window or off the front porch. Or um... so I'm told.
Just for fun, see how much styrofoam you can dissolve in a pint of gasoline. Start with a pint of gasoline in a quart jar and a big pile of styrofoam. Break off pieces of the styrofoam and feed it into the gasoline.
or those greasy packing peanuts and lighter fluid. Its amazing how much difference a little solvent makes on thermoplastics...
Please be careful with any experiments with fire. I've had both arms doused in flaming gasoline and have had one or both hands covered in flaming liquids numerous times from failed seals or ruptured parts of gas pressure appliances. I don't recommend it. The only thing that saved me from more serious damage was that I have a healthy respect for fire. My mishaps have always been outside and I always had a wet towel handy to smother the lantern or stove after putting myself out. I think in most cases a wet beach towel is more effective than a fire extinguisher in putting out liquid fuel fires. It's something that's far more available, makes no mess, and is usually reusable. Quite the opposite of a fire extinguisher. Save the fire extinguisher for larger fires that you can't get a towel over.
