The Aladdin Lamp

I bought an old kerosene lamp from our favorite resale shop in Manistee. It was missing a couple of things, most notably the chimney, but it is an Aladdin lamp and they still make replacement parts. I’ve learned that Aladdin lamps can be dated based on the design on the flame adjustment knob, which makes this one a Model 6 from around 1916. Originally this lamp was nickel plated and gleamed like sterling silver, but by the time it came to me it was kind of gray and industrial-looking. I was eager to see what I could do with it.

I spent a few hours polishing it with various mops and metal polishes. Alas, despite the lamp’s name, my efforts did not produce a djinn. It certainly looks more presentable, but I think returning it to its mirror-like glory would require re-plating it. I’ll admit I considered figuring out how to re-plate it myself but decided against it. I already have too many projects. And it has a few dents in it, which I am not interested in figuring out how to fix, so perhaps better that it maintains a well-worn, Farmhouse appropriate patina.

The burner and gallery cleaned up nicely with some paint remover followed by an ultrasound bath, though there are some carbon deposits that are forever fused to the inner surfaces. I ordered a new chimney and a new flame mantle.

Mantle lamps are fascinating, at least to a nerd like me, which means this particular project has led to more than one internet dumpster dive. Their history can be traced to the limelights used to light up 19th century theatre stages, where a flaming jet of hydrogen and oxygen was directed at a piece of compressed limestone chalk, which caused the chalk to give off a surprising amount of light (and no doubt led to some horrendous fires). From my self-important 21st century perch, I’m always surprised at how much science 19th century chemists knew, and they knew a lot, including how to find other elements that would glow much like chalk. Thorium is such an element. Flame mantles, including this new one for my lamp, are made of a fabric net soaked in thorium salts. When the mantle is lit for the first time, the fabric burns away in a moment, leaving a rigid and very fragile lattice of thorium, which, when heated, gives off much more light than the flame itself can put out. The word used is candoluminescene, and that’s where I stopped reading, because going on sounded like it might involve equations.

(Thorium, by the way, is an important component of tanjium, a metallic substance that plays an important role in my fantasy novel Lhosa. That’s a little tidbit I knew while writing the book, and now you know it, too.)

Once everything was ready to put back together, I was dismayed to discover the wick adjustment knob would no longer budge the wick. Much more polishing and fretting followed, with no luck. This part, unfortunately, is no longer available. I was feeling quite disappointed until an idea came to me, and a bit of re-shaping with needle nose pliers has the wick adjuster working smoothy again.

The one thing I’m missing is a metal tripod that extends from beneath the burner to support a colored glass shade. It seems that particular replacement part is available for Model 7 lamps and later. Thus far, no amount of internet sleuthing has uncovered a replacement. Someday perhaps I’ll find one. In the meantime, the Farmhouse gets another time-appropriate addition to keep us out of the dark when the power goes out, which it does a lot.