Outdoor Guide
Page 6
March-April 2022
Prepper’s Guide
What do you do when lights go out?
By DAVID HOSKING
What are you going to do when the power goes off and you’re left in the dark for hours, days or maybe even a week or two? How will you light your house or business? Let’s review some options for lighting during a power outage caused by, say, an ice storm: • Cellphone flashlight – These are quick and easy for finding your way around the house without stubbing your toes on furniture. However, the batteries will wear down quickly, and since the power is out, they can’t be recharged unless you plug them into an external battery. They provide minimal light over a small area, so they are not very useful. • Battery-powered flashlight – These are OK for a day or two, but they only illuminate a small
area and the batteries also wear down quickly. If you don’t have spare batteries, you can bet your local store shelves will be empty during an ice storm. Some of the new LED lights last longer than traditional flashlights and they provide greater illumination over a larger area, but they will still need to be recharged or have fresh batteries after heavy use. • Candles and oil lamps – These worked well for our pioneer ancestors, but they don’t shed a lot of light, and they are risky for starting house fires, especially if left unattended. Candles burn down quickly and oil lamps consume kerosene rather quickly. Today, kerosene is very expensive – about $12 per gallon, which will last about 20 hours in a traditional oil lamp. Also the odor from burning kerosene is very strong and unpleasant.
Dismantled internal components of a vintage Coleman lantern after a thorough cleaning. A restored 1964 Coleman Model 228F. • Propane lanterns – These
have become popular recently because of their portability, ease of use, low odor and their ability to brightly illuminate a room. However, they also present a fire hazard if left unattended and can cause suffocation if used in a confined space without proper
OUTDOOR
GUIDE
March-April 2022
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ventilation. Propane lanterns use small, 1l-pound disposable fuel cylinders which last only a few hours in a lantern. You’d need to store many full cylinders to get you through a weeklong power outage. Propane cylinders have become rather expensive these days – about $9 for a two-pack. To save money, some people try to refill these cylinders, but this is highly dangerous and even illegal in some locations. They are not designed to be refilled! • Liquid fuel lanterns – These lanterns burn a pressurized liquid fuel known as Coleman Fuel (CF) or white gas or naphtha. Some of the modern Coleman lanterns are designed to use either CF or common unleaded gasoline, although I find the latter gives off an unpleasant odor. These lanterns produce a tremendous amount of light and are portable, efficient and clean burning. CF is available most anywhere; even Walmart offers a generic, less expensive brand for about $8 per gallon. A full tank holds roughly a quart of fuel that lasts for at least 8 hours.As with propane lanterns, liquid fuel lanterns should never be left unattended or used in a confined space. RELIABILITY PROVEN FOR 120 YEARS The technology underlying Coleman lanterns is more than 120 years old, which gives strong evidence to their longterm reliability if they are properly maintained. The Coleman Company, founded in Wichita, KA. in 1900, is still in business. Over the years, the company also manufactured lanterns on behalf of others like Sears and J.C. Higgins, so you’ll occasionally find vintage non-green colored lanterns of slightly different designs, but they all work the same by burning pressurized liquid fuel.
I confess that these are my favorite lanterns and that I have had a love affair with vintage Coleman lanterns since I was a kid while growing up on a wilderness lake in Canada 60 years ago. In fact, my hobby is restoring these old lanterns back to like-new condition. Most of the vintage lanterns you find on eBay, FB Marketplace or in antique shops for $50 or more are basically over-priced junk that have been rusting away in a barn or garage for the past 30 or 40 years. An old lantern may look pretty on the outside, but its internal components are usually full of crud, rust and stale, varnished fuel that will clog the ultra-fine needle valve of a lantern’s generator. A LITTLE JOB FOR YOU The air tubes are almost always clogged with mud dauber and spider nests. To restore them to a reliable condition, the inside of the fount (fuel tank) needs to be de-rusted and cleaned, and the generator and fuel-pickup assemblies must be dismantled and soaked for hours in cleaning solutions. The fuel cap and pump gaskets always need to be replaced. Unrestored, these old lanterns may work for a time, but never for a long time. I try to buy vintage lanterns for about $10 or $15 because it costs $25 or more in new parts and materials, as well as many hours, to restore them. So why would you want to buy a restored vintage Coleman lantern instead of buying a brand new one from a big-box store? Frankly, the quality of the new Coleman lanterns is poor compared to the vintage lanterns. New lanterns cost more than $100 (plus shipping), and although they are still assembled in the USA, many of the parts are now made in China of plastic materials. I can’t imagine these new ones lasting for another 30 to 50 years like the old ones. On the other hand, with proper care, restored vintage lanterns are reliable and will last almost
indefinitely. Replacement parts continue to be available. KEEP IT DRY When you are camping, don’t leave the lantern out in the rain, and when you store it, dry it off, release the pressure, empty the fuel, put the cap back on tightly – and it will work fine the next time you use it. So, for when the power goes off, a restored vintage Coleman lantern is your best choice for reliable performance, and you can pass these treasures on to your grandchildren to use 30 years from now. Prepper’s Guide author David Hosking can be contacted at gamekeeper01@gmail.com Typical crud and gunk removed from inside a 30 year old Coleman fount (fuel tank) Dismantled internal components of a vintage Coleman lantern after a thorough cleaning. A restored 1964 Coleman Model 228F So why would you want to buy a restored vintage Coleman lantern instead of buying a brand new one from a big-box store? Frankly, the quality of the new Coleman lanterns is poor compared to the vintage lanterns. New lanterns cost more than $100 (plus shipping), and although they are still assembled in the USA, many of the parts are now made in China of plastic materials. I can’t imagine these new ones lasting for another 30 to 50 years like the old ones. On the other hand, with proper care, restored vintage lanterns are reliable and they will last almost indefinitely. Replacement parts continue to be available. When you are camping, don’t leave the lantern out in the rain, and when you store it, dry it off, release the pressure, empty the fuel, put the cap back on tightly—and it will work fine the next time you use it. So, for when the power goes off, a restored vintage Coleman lantern is your best choice for reliable performance, and you can pass these treasures on to your grandchildren to use 30 years from now.
Typical crud and gunk, removed from inside a 30-year-old Coleman fount (fuel tank).
