page_title: Kerosene lamp
section_title: Mantle lamp
hierarchical_section_title: Kerosene lamp / Types / Mantle lamp
caption_attribution_description: English: A 85mm Chance Brothers Incandescent Petroleum Vapour Installation which produced the light for the Sumburgh Head lighthouse until 1976. The lamp (made in approx. 1914) burned vaporized kerosene (paraffin); the vaporizer was heated by a denatured alcohol (methylated spirit) burner to light. When lit some of the vaporised fuel was diverted to a Bunsen burner to keep the vaporizer warm and the fuel in vapor form. The fuel was forced up to the lamp by air; the keepers had to pump the air container up every hour or so. This in turn pressurized the paraffin container to force the fuel to the lamp. The "white sock" is in fact an unburnt mantle on which the vapor burned.
context_page_description: A kerosene lamp is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. Kerosene lamps have a wick or mantle as light source, protected by a glass chimney or globe; lamps may be used on a table, or hand-held lanterns may be used for portable lighting. Like oil lamps, they are useful for lighting without electricity, such as in regions without rural electrification, in electrified areas during power outages, at campsites, and on boats. There are three types of kerosene lamp: flat-wick, central-draught, and mantle lamp. Kerosene lanterns meant for portable use have a flat wick and are made in dead-flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast variants.
  Pressurized kerosene lamps use a gas mantle; these are known as Petromax, Tilley lamps, or Coleman lamps, among other manufacturers. They produce more light per unit of fuel than wick-type lamps, but are more complex and expensive in construction and more complex to operate. A hand-pump pressurizes air, which forces liquid fuel from a reservoir into a gas chamber. Vapor from the chamber burns, heating a mantle to incandescence and also providing heat.
context_section_description: A variation on the "central-draught" lamp is the mantle lamp. The mantle is a roughly pear-shaped mesh made of fabric placed over the burner.  The mantle typically contains thorium or other rare-earth salts; on first use the cloth burns away, and the rare-earth salts are converted to oxides, leaving a very fragile structure, which incandesces (glows brightly) upon exposure to the heat of the burner flame. Mantle lamps are considerably brighter than flat- or round-wick lamps, produce a whiter light and generate more heat. Mantle lamps typically use fuel faster than a flat-wick lamp, but slower than a center-draught round-wick, as they depend on a small flame heating a mantle, rather than having all the light coming from the flame itself.
  Mantle lamps are nearly always bright enough to benefit from a lampshade, and a few mantle lamps may be enough to heat a small building in cold weather. Mantle lamps, because of the higher temperature at which they operate, do not produce much odor, except when first lit or extinguished.  Like flat- and round-wick lamps, they can be adjusted for brightness; however, caution must be used, because if set too high, the lamp chimney and the mantle can become covered with black areas of soot. A lamp set too high will burn off its soot harmlessly if quickly turned down, but if not caught soon enough, the soot itself can ignite, and a "runaway lamp" condition can result.
  One popular model of mantle lamp uses only a wick and is unpressurized.
  Large fixed pressurized kerosene mantle lamps were used in lighthouse beacons for navigation of ships, brighter and with lower fuel consumption than oil lamps used before.
caption: An 85 mm Chance Brothers Incandescent Petroleum Vapour Installation, which produced the light for the Sumburgh Head lighthouse until 1976. The lamp (made around 1914) burned vaporized kerosene (paraffin); the vaporizer was heated by a denatured alcohol (methylated spirit) burner to light. When lit, some of the vaporised fuel was diverted to a Bunsen burner to keep the vaporizer warm and the fuel in vapor form. The fuel was forced up to the lamp by air; the keepers had to pump the air container up every hour or so.  This in turn pressurized the paraffin container to force the fuel to the lamp. The "white sock" is in fact an unburnt mantle, on which the vapor burned.
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