SC - Lighting for cooking and camp

[WyteRayven at aol.com]

Hi Vika!

Thank you for your response to my query on lighting. With your response and a 
couple of others....along with a reminder about the Florilegium, (I had 
forgotten about it. What an incredible resource!) I think that I am going to 
try a compromise. I think that I will buy 1 or 2 of the lamps from Lehmans, 
and I will try making a couple, and see what happens. I am really interested 
in the olive oil variations because they appear to be safer than kerosene, 
and lamp oil lamps.

Thanks again for your input!

Ilia

In a message dated 4/18/00 11:15:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time, tori at panix.com 
writes:

> 
>  I have never used their lamps, but I experimented with oil lamps last year,
>  because we needed overhead light in our dining pavilion (it sucks to have
>  flame on the table--usually they end up right at eye level so you can't
>  see a damn thing else), didn't want electricity, and _really_ didn't want
>  to be picking candle wax out of the hair.
>  
>  After much Florilegium delving, I came up with the idea of using a
>  smallish glass bowl, not unlike a fish bowl, easily found at craft
>  stores.  I filled it halfway with olive oil (doesn't flash), procured
>  floating wicks from an Eastern Orthodox church supply site, and tested
>  the mechanism at home.  That was fine.
>  
>  To suspend the thingy, I thought one of those braided rope wossnames
>  that are used to hold plant pots (you know, the ones that sort of
>  cradle the pot and come down in a tassel underneath) would do, since
>  the flame was well below the level of the bowl.  It worked for two
>  nights of careful supervision, but the third night the heat managed to
>  burn its way through the rope.  Oops.  This was why I used olive oil;
>  it fell on the table and oil went everywhere, but the oil extinguished
>  the flame.  (No Scadians were harmed in the making of this motion
>  picture.)
>  
>  At Pennsic, I found among the merchants a lamp of similar design, only
>  they have a rounded-cylinder glass bit suspended from a varnished wood
>  plate which is then hanging from three chains.  That was a bit better.
>  
>  I should point out that the light from either of these was not
>  particularly bright, but one can always make up for that in quantity.
>  
>  I also purchased, from the church site, the lamp which is _supposed_
>  to go with those wicks, which is silver (well, probably tin or nickel
>  or something) and glitzy.  I thought it would be cool to have a whole
>  bunch of those, but they're like $25/each.  It's very small, and the
>  oil reservoir is about the size of a votive.  Nifty, though.
>  
>  HTH, etc.
>  
>  Vika
>  who _really_ wants a 30-candle chandelier, but not in a Pennsic windstorm
>