Holes in Coleman Mantles

@MYN your meter is nicer than mine haha and I see you're reading about the same.
Curious though if all the red packs are thorium and from India still as I'm not sure if I got old stock or not

 

The meter does not belong to me. I borrowed it from the place I'm working in.
I don't think any from Indo Auerlicht, India is old stock. They aren't that old anyway.
They do make both radioactive and non-active ones, currently.

 

The ones I got last year are in the red pack but somebody put a self-adhesive small sticker on the top of the pack with YYYY on it. Nothing else is printed on the pack that gives clues to it being thorated or not.
I could be wrong but I think these have been made in India since 2007 when peerless (Philipines) was bought by Indo-Auerlicht. Auerlicht advertise thorated and non-thorated versions of this mantle.
So old stock Peerless would be made in Manilla.

 

@Fireexit1 I guess its luck of the draw regarding getting Thorium or not since its not marked on the package.

 

The American Mantles are pretty darn strong and bright. I do have a couple pairs that burn more of a peach/warm light than bright white. You have to tie them on even and give them a little tug to stretch them out if you want a even filled out mantle. I try to save my SilkLite's for a deserving piece. My go to mantles is Peerless 2C-HG or larger, depending on the lantern.

 

@Kgam1020 Agreed. I think my first go to is Peerless 2C-HG in the red pack, and after that the American Mantle model 785 (they surprised me).
Century/Primus, Stansport, American Coleman (not the india made ones) would be a good grab if the others were not available.

Ill hard pass on anything made in india from Coleman with that "easy install" arrow logo.

I have only 2 packs of Silk Lites and just put them back in my hoard as I dont want to use them up.

This whole thing was just me getting stuff ready for the spring season for camping trips and such and getting my lanterns out the make sure they're good to go....and now I am doing all these tests on mantles haha.

It was fun though I would have to say.

 

@Fireexit1 yep... I got some holes in my peerless mantles that was debris like that. I changed them out as the bottoms of the mantles looked a little like tea bags, and there were tiny bits of crap in the mantles. Some of them punched through and burned like tiny sparks.

The lamp I am burning them on is pretty unknown to me. I got the 159x on the bay REALLY cheap and got it running but the R55 generator kept plugging up with carbon (?). Enough so that I had to prick it manually as I think the needle on mine is burned off too short or trimmed. I kept taking the generator out and removing the tip, pricking it, reinstalled it and had nice burns until another plug. Sometimes I would see other stuff landing in the mantles, and the white color started to change colors at the bottom. to a brown. The mantles looked shredded after a while, so changed them to the American Mantle big mesh mantles so maybe the crap has gaps to get out? haha...I dont know.

They're running better now as I think the old fuel that was in it is completely cleared out with white gas now, but the fuel that was in the lamp really smelled weird to me. It was empty but still had residue and I dont know what the person was burning in it but it was not coleman fuel for sure.

 

I would usually test a newly cleaned/serviced or fettled lantern without attaching the mantle(s). That's just to check and ensure the lantern is free from other issues and would burn with a clean, pale blue flame.
I would operate the pricker/cleaning needle a few times during the tests to clear out any loosely attached dirt from within the generator.(you'd usually find them after disturbing the 'innards' of the generators).
During this time, the last traces of dirt, oxidation or debris would be driven out in the flame. They would show up as orange/yellow incandescent sparks amidst the otherwise, blue flame.
A few sharp taps on the lantern's burner frame during such tests would reveal more hidden debris that are potentially damaging to mantles .
I'd get these out as much as possible before finally attaching the mantle for a real operation.