YouTube Transcript: Using Hurricane Oil Lamps Onboard

Hi I'm Lawrence from Force 4 Chandlery. Today I want to give you a really brief overview of a product I really like. This is the iconic hurricane lamp. The hurricane lamp was originally designed in the late 1700s and the design hasn't changed much. They're a really really nice design -  you can see a lot of thought's gone into these. The've a really sturdy pressed steel body which is all designed to protect this globe in the middle. And they are as the name suggests really resistant to being blown up by the wind, so ideal for use at sea and they were really quickly adopted for use on ships of the time. All the weight is in the bottom - the base is nice and wide - this is where the fuel tank is. So this is the heavy part -  so when you sit it on a flat surface like that, it's really resistant to falling over. And you've also got a whole multitude of other ways of using it - you can you can hang it, you can carry it and as I say a really, really nice sturdy design. These really are designed to kind of last a lifetime really, actually if you take care of one of these it should still be with you in in 20, 30 or 40 years maybe. They are really simple to use you've got a little fill port just down here, and the first thing you're going to want to do when you get one of these is fill it. We recommend using lamp oil for these - you can use a standard paraffin, but lamp oil is a much cleaner burning fuel. It's designed to give off less smoke and smell, so i would definitely recommend lamp oil if you're going to use it inside. But but even if you're outside, to be honest,  lamp oil is just nicer to be around really. As i say about three-quarter fill, no more than that and that should give you about 10 to 12 hours of burn time on one of one of these lamps. So really good - should see through a nigh, and once you've filled it you want to leave it for about 30 minutes to soak up that fuel. It is really important to do that when the wick is dry. If the wick is soaked and you know you used it last week or something, then that's fine you don't need to do it again, but definitely on a brand new lamp or a lamp that's been dry for any period of time, got to give it a certain amount of time just to just to soak up that fuel. As soon as you're ready to light it you've got a little adjustment screw just here. I'm going to set it so you can see - about six millimeters, about a quarter of an inch of wick and you can then lift the globe up,  pop your mac lighter in there. It should take quite quickly as long as the wick is saturated.  As soon as it sets off going, you want to just turn it down, so you can just see about one to two millimeters of wick. And we're looking initially for a really small flame -  we just want to gently warm the lamp up. These globes are, they're really tough and they're designed to, obviously you know, take a bit of abuse but if you let it warm up properly, it will again last a lifetime. So gently over a period of about five or ten minutes you can just slowly turn the lamp up and get it to the desired setting we shouldn't be really seeing a flame more than about two thirds of the way up the glass there, and if you see any black smoke coming out the top then again just just just turn it down a little bit. These lamps are designed so that when they freestand, the handle falls down so it doesn't sit up here getting hot so you can always pick this up and use it even with the lamp lit. This top bit here does get quite hot. That's pretty much unavoidable so just be careful of that when the lamp's actually running.  When you're ready to extinguish the lamp, again you just pull down this little lever, lifting up the globe and you can just blow it out. That is the, that's the hurricane lump, really nice design, really traditional bit of kit.  As i say it's been the same for a long time and it's something that I really like. Ends