Improvements in or Connected with Oil Lamps for Lighting or Heating.
Year: 1889

page_text: Date of Application, 14th May, 1889 -Accepted, 6th July, 1889
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in or Connected with Oil Lamps for Lighting or
Heating.
I, JAMES ROOTS, of 19 St. Marys Road, Westbourne Park, Middlesex, Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to
be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the follow-
ing statement:-
The object of this invention is to produce a Bunsen or blue burning flame from
an oil lamp in an extremely simple manner, by so constructing the lamp that
air is mixed with the gas or vapour given off from one side of the wick before
being burnt whether from the cotton or permanent wick and the addition for
lighting of a platinum wire gauze hood, which is rendered incandescent by the
great heat of the blue flame.
For heating or cooking purposes, the chimney is made of metal and has
fitted, over the burner, a hell mouthed metal cap which I call the combiner open
at the bottom to the air and to the chimney at the top by a contracted aperture.
The burner is of the ordinary circular or argand type without a central button
or air deflector, either with the central air supply passing through a conical hole
in the wick case or through a tube passing through the lamp reservoir. In
larger circular burners it is necessary to stop a certain quantity of the central
air supply, by means of perforated metal, or a central tube having an expanded!
mouth at the top.
The combiner is constructed of such diameter that only a narrow channel is
left for the passage of air between the outside surface of the wick and the inside
of the combiner, so that of necessity the air travels at a high speed through it
and at too high a speed to flame on the outside surface of the wick. The com-
biner thus arranged becomes extremely heated and therefore heats the .air
entering and passing the wick surface and also the wick by radiation, it having
the highly heated surface of the combiner close to it, thus preventing the wick
from being cooled down by the rapid passage of the air, and increasing the
vapourisation of the oil from its surface. In flat wick burners the one side is
separated from the other by two wings attached at the edge of the wick case, so
as to prevent the flame passing from the one side of the wick to the other or the
combiner may be only just large enough for the width of the wick to effect the
same object. In all of the burners shown with the combiner attached the flame
burns on one side of the wick only and on the opposite surface of the wick,
owing to heat radiated from the combiner and the heat that passes through the
wick from the flame on the other side of it, the oil is evaporated and mixed with
the rapidly passing current of air.
The same letters refer to the same parts in all the Figures.
A is the comliner having the bell shaped interior and the contracted top B.
C is the metal chimney. D is the wick case and E the wick which is turned up
much higher than in ordinary lamps. F is the oil reservoir.
Referring to Figure 1 the chimney and combiner rest on the supports G. the
continuations of which G₁ form the support of the kettle or other article to be
heated.
Figure 2 shows a combiner of slightly different shape, also a button H of iron
or other metal attached at the top of the chimney by three supports, which be-

page_text: comes red hot and puts the blue flame passing out at the top of the chimney into
a glow on coming into contact with it, and also tends to prevent the passage
away of any gas unconsumed. There are also small perforations to supply
further air to the flame after having passed through the contracted channel B.
Figure 2 is a plan showing the button H with its supports.
Figure 3 is a section of a larger burner with a central tube passing through the
reservoir F and with the tube I fitted in the central tube having an expanded
mouth to reduce the quantity of air passing through the central tube. The com-
biner A has a proportionately contracted channel B and has perforations at J
for a further supply of air to the flame after passing through the contraction B.
Figure 4 shows the same combiner, as in Figures 1 and 8 but with a glass
chimney K resting on the same base or gallery as the combiner. The top of the
combiner on the outside of the contracted channel B is provided with an annular
ledge or shelf, on which is fitted a ring of steatite or other good nonconductor
having a groove cut in it, in which is fitted the bottom ring wire of the platinum
wire gauze hood M raised on supports of stouter platinum wire at greater dis-
tance apart than the mesh of the wire to allow the flame readily to pass through,
so that the wire gauze hood M is enveloped in flame, the white flame inside
the hood, the blue almost entirely outside.
Figure 5 is the same arrangement with a hood having a straight instead of
curved top, and showing the arrangement of supporting the glass chimney on
the same base or gallery as the combiner.
Figure 6 is the same burner as in Figure 3 shown with the metal gauze hood
applied.
Figures 7 and 7 show a flat wick fitted with a combiner having a rectangular
channel B instead of circular. The flat wick case D has fitted at the top, two
wings or plates of metal N to separate the two channels and prevent the passage
of the flame round the edge of the wick to the other side. Two flat wicks may
be placed parallel in the same way in one combiner and the two flames pass
through the same channel B, or a division or partition may be placed in the
channel to separate the flames.
Figure 9 shows the arrangement applied to a downward light lamp having a
platinum wire gauze hood M¹ of different shape to that shown before, the two
wick cases are placed horizontally and the burners are placed at the mouth of
the double horizontal combiner having a channel B projecting downward, through
which the flames from both wicks pass and also a channel B', opening to the
chimney C above it. When the lamp is first lighted, the flames pass together
up the channel B₁ and by the valve or trap C2 which is opened by hand by the
lever C3 on the chimney C becoming sufficiently heated to induce a draught in
it, the trap C' is closed when the flames pass downward by the passage B through
the gauze M rendering it incandescent by the Bunsen-burning Hame in the
same way as before described.
Figure 10 shows a similar arrangement of horizontal wicks and a double
combiner but with an upward burner flame by the channel B to the chimney C
of metal.
Figure 11 shows a larger burner having a central tube for air supply through
the reservoir and with a similar combiner to that in Figure 3 but differently
fitted and having the cylindrical block in the centre of the channel B sus-
pended from a tube fixed across the diameter of the chimney C. The block P in
the flame becomes red hot and further increases the heat of the combiner A and
the quantity of vapour given off from the wick E. Air enters the tubes R, R,
which also becomes red hot and passes through the slots and mingles with the
upper part of the flame increasing its efficiency.
For a permanent wick. I make a pulp of silicate cotton or slag wool by saturat-
ing it with silicate of soda. The sticky mass thus formed is placed in a mould of
the required shape for the wick and subjected slowly to a red heat. It is allowed
to cool in the mould and on taking it out, it forms a hard porous wick with

page_text: almost as good a capillary action as a cotton wick. It can be made of different
degrees of hardness or porosity by difference of pressure applied to pack it in
the mould.
Figure 12 shows a section of the wick as made for a central tube reservoir
having a screw fitted to turn it up and down, and an annular cotton wick V to
feed it with oil.
Figure 12 shows the wick made for a burner without the central air supply
but with a cylindrical hole X bored in the top of the wick to produce the inside
flame surface.
Figure 13 is a section of two flat wicks placed in one combiner A of the same
width as the wicks and with a piece of perforated metal fitted between the two
wick cases to reduce the amount of air passing up between them and so increase
the quantity passing over the outsides of the wicks when turned up. The two
wicks are fitted into one reservoir.
Two, three, or more small circular burners with their combiners, as shown in
Figures 1 and S, may be fitted to the base of one chimney and all be made to
turn up simultaneously.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is:-
1. The combination of the combiner as herein described and shown with an oil
reservoir, wick, argand burner and chimney whether of glass or metal.
2. The combination of an oil lamp with a wire gauze hood rendered incan-
descent by the heat of the flame from a wick.
3. In an oil lamp for lighting or heating, the combination of the flat wicks
with the single or double combiner.
4. The employment of a combiner in combination with a downward light lamp,
such as shown in Figure 9.
5. In an oil lamp, the metal block, heated by the flame suspended from the
tube R which conveys a further supply of air to the flame.
6. In connection with oil lamps, the composition and manufacture of the per-
manent wick and the method shown of feeding it by a cotton wick with oil.
7. In an oil lamp for giving a blue heating or Bunsen burning flame, a com-
biner as a means or appliance for inducing rapid inflow of air and instantly heat-
ing it and mixing it with vapour giving off from heated oil from the exposed
wick at the wick tube end, all as described and shown in the annexed drawings.
Dated this 14th day of May 1889.
H. GARDNER,
166, Fleet Street, London, Agent for the said James Roots.