When we were in Syria, I saw pressure lanterns for sale and I realised that that is what I needed to make my life complete. So I asked around and they seemed to be going for around AU$20. Maissa was a little surprised that I wanted but insisted I wait until we get back to Lebanon as we would be able to buy one there, and her mum might even have one we could have.
When we got back to Lebanon, Maissa’s mum said that she had just thrown them all out because they never used them any more so it was off to the markets to get one.
We eventually found one that looked ok. It looked new, but as though it has been sitting in the market for about 5 years before someone bought it. Once I got it, I was itching to try it out but I knew I would have to wait until we got home.
Today I finally had a play with it. I put the mantle on it, filled it with kerosene, and tried to work out how to light the thing. It didn’t come with any instructions so I had to guess. After fiddling around with it for a while I realised that there was little hope of me working it out and so I resorted to searching the Internet.
I found that the lamp I have is a Chinese copy of a Petromax without the top reflector bit ( I supposed i could actually photograph mine, but I can’t be bothered). Anyway, after much reading, I discovered a few hints on how to light the thing. Mine has a rapid preheater feature, which basicaly squirts raw kerosene up into the glass chamber to heat the evaporator stage. I tried to get that going, but it just wouldn’t light. I realised too that my pressure guage is not working. Upon reading more, I found that it would require about 30-40 pumps to bring it up to pressure for the rapid heater to work, and would require pumping while the rapid heater was in use as it quickly depletes the pressure. The rapid heater needs to be used for about 60 seconds. Once I had this knowledge, I tried it again and quickly got the thing going. I wonder where I can get a new pressure guague for my lamp?
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