Olive Oil For Hurricane Lamps

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

You get more miles per gallon with the Extra VO.

Don't sacrifice virgins to make your lamps glow.

[Dave22q]

Yep olive oil burns. So do dollar bills. Based on using candles with floating wicks years ago I learned that the cheapest cooking oils work well and olive oil is not cheap.

[jkindredpdx]

Thanks. Sounds like a great experimentation opportunity...

[crazyoldboatguy]

I wonder how many olive trees would be needed to power the fleet. Or the millions of cars thruout the world. I'm sure JD stayed up nights thinking of how much he would make selling lamp oil.


But I love the idea - EVOO could make below decks smell heavenly.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: " I'm sure JD stayed up nights thinking of how much he would make selling lamp oil. "

He did actually :-) Rock Oil, Petroleum to the English, Erdôhl to Germans, kerosene to Americans was used as lamp oil long before it was used as a motor fuel, and JD's first endeavours back in the 1870s were to expand the market for lamp oil by selling kerosene cheaper than sperm oil could be bought, so that even poor people could have artificial light. Henry Ford pulled the same stunt forty years later by making the motorcar affordable for the "common man".

Our present ecological plight stems precisely from the unintended consequences of that. Rockefeller and Ford will have a lot to answer for on judgement day, as will George Lister and Flo Nightingale :-)

TrentePieds

[crazyoldboatguy]

I'm afraid to ask just what ecological plight to which you refer - worried it might trigger a long diatribe on AGW or some such. Petroleum has been a boon to mankind. Yes there are pollution issues but it is interesting to note that technology has tamed most of this beast while making the internal combustion engine far more efficient than even old Rudolph D could possibly imagine. Then there is all that heat and light which has allowed folks like Sabin and Salk to invent life saving vaccines (uh oh) while working late hours into the night.

But We digress.....

[UNCIVILIZED]

I think I'll have to see if Peanut Oil would work also, given that the first diesels were designed to run on it.

As to the "Why don't we know this" question. Mostly the same reason that it isn't the most common knowledge that The US is the world's biggest Oil Exporter. As dissemination such isn't PC, & it costs rich folks money!

Knowledge is power.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

You get more miles per gallon with the Extra VO.

DO NOT USE EVOO. The thing that makes EVOO taste so good is contaminates like olive bits, and VOC's and flavorents. You want a highly refined oil to burn cleanly and leave as little resedue as possible. The upside is that typically refined olive oils cost less the more they are refined.

The same goes for other oils. You want something that is as processed as possible and as far from a cold press oil as you can get. Basically all the stuff health nuts don't want, you do.

[Emmalina]

Freeze diesel it turns to paraffin !

[Steadman Uhlich]

With olive oil's propensity to smoke at lower temps than some other vegetable oils used for cooking, I suspect the reason for not using olive oil in lamps, rather than other oils, would be the smoke and soot. If it is the only oil available, it may work, but if other oils are available, they may be preferable for this reason, aside from cost issues.

Clean burning oils (whale oil is considered clean burning) are what people want in lamps to produce light without smoke and soot.

I have cleaned a few sooty lamp globes.

Proper wick length is also important and some other tips you can find online somewhere.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by Steady Hand

With olive oil's propensity to smoke at lower temps than some other vegetable oils used for cooking, I suspect the reason for not using olive oil in lamps, rather than other oils, would be the smoke and soot. If it is the only oil available, it may work, but if other oils are available, they may be preferable for this reason, aside from cost issues.

Clean burning oils (whale oil is considered clean burning) are what people want in lamps to produce light without smoke and soot.

I have cleaned a few sooty lamp globes.

Proper wick length is also important and some other tips you can find online somewhere.

In other words...you've never tried olive oil and are just speculating.

[Stumble]

So I had to look this up on some lantern forums (there is everything on the internet these days) and apparently refined OO is highly recommended for lamps. It actually seems prefered over petroleum oils because of its high flash point and low amount of smoke.

Now if only I had an oil lamp.

[Bill Seal]

The museum in Pompeii has some ummm... "interesting" olive oil lamps dating back a couple of thousand years.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

In other words...you've never tried olive oil and are just speculating.

I cook with olive oil, every day. I don't use it in a lamp.

Speculating is what most do in threads like this. It is part of a friendly discussion of a topic.

Have you tested olive oil against other oils in a lamp to see how it burns compared to other oils?

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by Stumble

So I had to look this up on some lantern forums (there is everything on the internet these days) and apparently refined OO is highly recommended for lamps. It actually seems prefered over petroleum oils because of its high flash point and low amount of smoke.

Now if only I had an oil lamp.

That's good to know.