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Thread: Lampight

  1. #21
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    Sharing the maidens is doable. Sharing the ale...the lads began to grumble at that. With enough ale you forget about the bossy wenches...for a while. But there was that one wench Lorena that took things a bit too far. We don't let her handle knives anymore.


  2. #22
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    It's starting to look like the Vikings had the right idea of it being bad luck to have a woman on the boat...

    Vikings were kinda like a hybrid Pirate/Barbarian. Sail up, jump off the boat, do the barbarian thing pillaging and whatnot, toss the plunder back on the boat and make a run for it.

    As far as wenches like Lorena go, there's crazy, bat**** crazy and then there's Lorena Bobbitt keerraaazyyyy! If she's around, stay on the boat!


    Alan

  3. #23
    Member Mannlicher's Avatar
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    learn to make candles

  4. #24
    Senior Member DSJohnson's Avatar
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    Look up "Betty Lamps". I have, by choice (you might even say for fun) gone with out electricity for 30 days at a time, more than once. Mostly to learn how to do it. What it takes and how to manage without it. For me, and my wife, it took some getting used to the first time we tried it, but pretty quickly you get the hang of it. One of the things I realized very quickly is that when it got dark we went to bed. I am, and always have been afraid of the dark and I always keep several good flashlights around ALL the time, so making that adjustment, to not have a good light immediately available was a huge challenge for me. It took a tremendous amount of will power to not "cheat" and stash a light "just in case" a bad thing happened. I am a big "just in case" kind of guy, that is one of the reasons I ended up here. Back to the point, if you are not a victim/casualty of the apocalypse and you have shelter I think that having a light to read by is going to be way down the list of important equipment in your world, but I think a simple oil lamp, like a Betty will be useful, I think candles would be the berrys if you manage the technology. Don't let the banter fool you. We do have some knowledge worth sharing, we are just a touch jaded. Too much pillaging I think

  5. #25
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    That's a pretty neat little lamp. I can see where putting some kind of reflector behind it could throw the light a bit more.

    Too much pillaging? Well, my pillaging happens at such a pace these days that to an outside observer it appears I'm just dottering around in the yard...

    Alan

  6. #26
    Senior Member natertot's Avatar
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    See, Maidens cause a lot of issues like that. Perhaps thats why some cultures have moved away from maidens and gone to sheep?
    ”There's nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it.” ~Johnny Rotten

  7. #27
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    That was so baaaaaad.
    Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.

  8. #28
    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    I have a "Betty lamp" on the shelf above the computer. I have used them a lot in my reenactment days. The are messy, sooty, greasy and don't put out enough light to accomplish anything. They are one step up from floating a moss wick on a puddle of fat in a clam shell.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

  9. #29

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    My go to lamplight is candles. I have some good candle lanterns I use at rendezvous and a few at home and at the cabin. Like kyratshooter I'm not a fan of the betty lanterns.

  10. #30
    Senior Member Michael aka Mac's Avatar
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    Our Family built a Log Cabin in the Catskill mountains, NY, off the side of a cliff (most of cabin is on stilts). Yep no electricity, wood burning stove/heater, an outhouse, and an indoor hand water pump that we ran pipes to the stream down below. We would spend weeks there at a time.

    So for lighting we used a combination of candles, kerosene lamps, oil lamps, a solar panel and LED bulb, a fire in the fireplace, and battery operated lanterns, and Coleman 2 mantle white gas lanterns.


    In reality, the reason you are concerned about the doomsday scenario of not having Light Drop shift, is from a lack of knowledge of and about these devices and their fuel sources.



    Learning how to make alcohol, knowing how to make and use a distiller solves your problem with oil lamps. Making a wick is easy, so knowledge of wick making and alcohol means you have a light source for ever.

    Understanding Electricity, Magnetism, Physics and chemistry, will teach you how to make your own batteries.

    For example, you can run a battery operated lantern using copper, zinc and an acid, such as Beer, Grapefruit, Vinegar, Orange juice etc..

    Or you can utilize a car's alternator and make a wind mill, or hydropower with a stream, solar panel...

    Using the Sun rays, one can put a port hole in their roof with reflective metal tubing (think its called Solatube) and connect that to a light diffuser giving you light in each room until sunset. (Egyptians did this with mirrors)

    There is a solution for anything if you are willing to do the foot work for it. No electricity but you need ice, that can be created via chemistry.

    No electricity but yet you rely on a Oxygen tank... H2O Aqua, water can be separated into its basic components of oxygen and hydrogen.

    The more you know, the more you can do...

  11. #31
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    Our problem would be...two diabetics and a heart condition. Insulin would be really hard to come by and I could titrate myself on digital in but that's a touchy process.
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

  12. #32
    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Yea Mac, the more you know the more you can do, but what you think you know may not be what is actually known.

    Like the fact that most of the stuff you listed only works on You Tube.

    Alcohol burns with a nearly colorless flame that you can not even see! That's not going to do you much good in a lamp, wick, mantle or otherwise.

    It also takes a incredible amount of corn, wheat or other base, a lot of sugar and a bit of yeast. If you can get all that together you are not really in a survival situation. Then there is the fuel it takes to power the operation and the significant time for mash to sour, and a run to process. You don't just boil some corn and burn the juice.

    Alcohol is not fuel, it's trade goods!

    That car alternator thing is also a bit tricky. Your car charges off the alternator at around 1000 rpm engine speed, but you have a serpentine belt in there that gives you about a 4/1 ratio boost so that little device needs a creek that will spin it at about 5000 rpm before the electronics inside will allow it to kick over and put out its power. Yea, the modern ones have a built in voltage regulator/rectifier that shorts out if you don't set it up correctly. It will only put out a certain amount of power in a narrow rpm band. If you blow that rectifier the system is shot because an alternator puts out AC current and you need DC to charge a battery.

    You can buy a good generator and charge your battery off that for less than it costs to build an operating system off a car alternator. I would opt for a nice 100w solar panel from HF and pray for daylight.

    Beer, zinc and grapefruit? You are kidding, right? Drink the beer and OJ, make some pickles with the vinegar and cast the zinc into some bullets.

    Then go to the Dollar General and buy sone solar powered garden lights and stick them out in the yard. Let them charge all day and bring then inside at night.

    And those things that let light inside your house when the sun is up??? Normally we call those devices windows.

    As you get older you are definitely faced with the prospect that there are some things you can do absolutely nothing about. It reminds you why the life expectancy if you were born in 1900 was 45-50 years.

    Yea, the more you know the more you can do, if you actually know anything!

    Recognize what you don't know and then go to someone that actually knows what they are doing to learn the difference.

    And don't believe everything you see on YouTube. Those guys are just trying to quit their day job when they sucker in enough subscribers and get enough views. They'll do, say or tell you anything to get a click.

    You really don't think they live in those little brush huts they build do you?
    Last edited by kyratshooter; 06-10-2022 at 10:09 PM.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

  13. #33
    Senior Member Michael aka Mac's Avatar
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    Well I have no clue what your background is kyratshooter, but everything I mentioned I have built in the past, including home made batteries, although it was a work project not home project.

    You said" And those things that let light inside your house when the sun is up??? Normally we call those devices windows."

    https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Light...81365822&psc=1

    Sun rays enter your windows and the amount of light you get changes throughout the day due to the position of our home in relation to the sun. These port tubes on the other hand send the light to different rooms and even closets illuminating areas of your home where the sunlight does come in from the windows. Worked on a job doing this, and the illumination it produced for the home was very impressive, guessing you have never been in a home with this setup, and just shooting it down without witnessing it.

    you said "Alcohol burns with a nearly colorless flame that you can not even see! That's not going to do you much good in a lamp, wick, mantle or otherwise."
    To increase brightness all one has to do is add something like common table salt for an orange glow, or something like a small addition of nail polish remover, these additives will alter the flame color and additional wicks would further increase lumen output. (there are countless other things that could be added that would change what color flame output it produces and lumens)


    People tend to use what they know and are familiar with. If you are not familiar with the operation of a fire piston, chances are you are going to think that it is a gimmick vs a tool, since the person couldn't get it to work properly.

    I was taught old school electronics, how to make a Resistor, capacitor, bridge rectifier, transformer and motors by hand, and yes winding copper hundreds of times is a slow in painful process.

    WIth that said, I own a generator, and solar panels and 12 volt batteries, inverters and converters and regulators, but consideriong for a living I have installed and built all the above, a diy version doesn't scare me in the least, been there done that.

    you said "Beer, zinc and grapefruit?" you are correct that wont do jack !@#$, but that is also because you forgot the copper. The 2 metals react on different electrical poles, one on positive while the other negative causing a difference of potential, aka the battery. like any battery they can be added in a combination of parallel or in series to increase voltage and current.

    A common 10 speed bicycle covered the gear ratio with an alternator.

    And you seemed to miss the point of the thread posted, This was listed for Lamplights sake in response to his statement "And when kerosene/paraffin supplies run out what'll we do then?"

    The point is there is always a solution to a problem, and sometimes one has to think outside of the box to see it.

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