A V-8 moment

[stickbender]

     Yeah, Dave, the free fuel, is definitely an advantage.   
     Where do you get kerosene?  I haven't seen it available anywhere, since I was a teenager.  Which was...... a while back so to speak.......   Those old lamps, AND kerosene heaters, did indeed put out some heat.  The old lanterns, smoked a bit to say the least, and not to mention the slight odor.  We also used to uh...... uh...... pick up old abandoned, yeah, yeah, that's what we did, we picked up "old abandoned" "Flambeaus", when we were kids, and took them camping too, and kept them filled with kerosene.  For those not familiar, with "Flambeaus" they were a round metal container, with a wick, and a metal wick cap, that looked like small bowling ball, with a flat bottom.  They were what the road crews used, before the flashing lights on the saw horse, type warning device, for road construction, or caution alerts for bad roads.  They would fill them with kerosene, and light them, and leave them, and then come back and fill them, or remove them, if we didn't first..... I mean uh, if we didn't find them abandoned first....... .... uh yeah, only the abandoned ones......    ......Well they did leave them you know!

                                                   Wayne

[RidgeRunner]

Yes!  Free fuel is definitely an advantage.

Kerosene can still be found at many gas stations around the house.  Most of it is used in LARGE kerosene heaters that people use in their homes in the winter.  I cant use a kerosene heater.  My wife has a terrible reaction to kerosene fumes.  It will make her sick, I talking bad sick, in just a few minutes.  We have to use Paraffin Oil in our kerosene lanterns.  Lost of people in this area call them hurricane lamps.  Paraffin Oil is made for use in wick lamps.  It can be found a Academy Sports and sometimes even at Wall Mart.  It burns a lot cleaner than kerosene.  A real high grade of kerosene can also be found at Academy and Wall Mart.

I have given some thought to making a larger Wood Gas Stove from an empty 1 - Pound propane tank.  The plan is to use it at home, outside, when the power is out.  We spent nine days without power after the tornadoes went through on 4/27/11.  If we had not had a full tank of propane for the grill we would have had it much worse. 

I remember "Flambeaus".  Those things must have been abandoned all over.
Do you remember how they smoked?  If you could get one to burn clean with out smoking....  Wow what a cook stove you would have.
David

[Adam]

For what it's worth, the last time I bought kerosene at a gas station, they refused to sell it to me unless I had an "official" marked kerosene container made of blue plastic.  I had previously used an old red gas can, but they claimed by law it had to be in an approved container.  It wasn't a big deal, just hopefully this saves some people an extra trip to the gas station.

[stickbender]

     Yes indeedy, Ridgerunner, those Flambeaus, did smoke!  Yeah, we had those kerosene heaters, when I was a kid, till my Dad bought a gas heater.  A friend of mine had some minor burns, when his family's kerosene heater, exploded.   I don't remember all the details, but he said it exploded, not as a big bang, etc. but just burst, or something like that.  I have heard of other incidents like that.  I don't know exact reasons for it, but I think it had to do mainly with operator error.   But yeah, they had a definite odor all their own.  You could tell immediately when you went over to someone's home if they had a kerosene heater, or lamp.  It was just accepted, as normal daily life.  No telling what kind of damage the fumes were doing to us.  I know kerosene was used for a lot of things, besides heating, and lighting.  I know that when I stepped on an old rusty nail, and buried it in my foot, my Mother, or Dad would douse it with kerosene, and we would go back to doing whatever we were doing, with a slight hobble.  No Tetanus shot, and no ill effects, or infections.  A lot of my Friends, did the same thing, and I don't know of any of us who ever had a bad reaction, or infection, and we healed up fast, and went on with life.  Kerosene used to be used in jet fuel, which is why they left such a dark smoke trail.   It was good for cleaning stuff too.  And we would cut cattails, and put them in an old paint can and then fill it with kerosene, and leave it for four or five days, or so, then pull them out, and there would be like a gel on the cattails, and we would run at night with our torches, at least until, they burned through the stem, and fell off, sometimes on us!   We didn't set the woods, on fire, but it wasn't because of lack of opportunity!   We learned to do the fire stomp dance quite well.   But we had fun!   We would each carry four or five of them,
and when one burned through, we would light another one from it, and then stomp the one that burned off the stem out, and go on with our torch run.....   We finally got technically advanced, and would take bailing wire, and wrap a couple of cattails to a hoe handle, and they lasted much longer.   But we never thought to put some tin around the hoe handle, or insert a metal rod, or pipe, so after awhile, even the hoe handle would burn through, but they lasted for quite a while though.                                              Wayne

                                                         Wayne

                                                Wayne