What's the white gas that rapidly fills the lantern when the rapid heater goes out? Is it just water vapour condensing out of the air? Hope thats not such a daft question that I'm now only allowed an electric Petromax! :-) Thanks Matthew
That's what I thought - but it seemed inflammable - or at least I had a naked flame nearby and there wasn't the expected fireball when a cloud of the gas vented through the top. So I thought maybe the relative temperature of the gas causes water droplets to form.
I never have much luck with rapid preheaters, they always seems to light first time run for a few seconds then go out. No matter how many times I try relighting it, it keeps going out. Even when the globe area is full of fuel vapour as you say it still doesn't light. Then I end up back at meths.
Strictly speaking, no (and not a "gas", either). These flamethrower preheaters don't vapourise the fuel, they 'atomise' it i.e. turn it into tiny droplets so that it's something more like an aerosol or perhaps a fog or mist. If the fuel droplets aren't small enough, they don't burn so the preheater goes out. For the same reason there's no fireball because the mixture's too rich to ignite... I can't be doing with these blowlamp preheaters either. They're too fierce and can smash the globe, destroy the mantle or require frantic pumping during preheating. Give me a gentle, stress-free meths preheat any day...
David, I think at our age we are starting to forget the exciting, heady rush of that mixture of testosterone and adrenaline that goes with fast motorcycles, fast women and rapid pre-heating...
