Make a working oil lamp

I have several lamps and lanterns that use oil and candles for old time lighting. I thought -just how hard would it be to make my own? It is fairly simple. My first attempt was just using a tuna can and some cotton string braided into a wick. You will see it in the middle of the first picture after the test. It worked- kind of. I wanted to see how I could improve on it so I gathered up a #4 glass jar from my friends Dan and Carol Boley's fruit farm. It is about the size of an olive jar. I do not think the size matters that much. I wanted to recycle some oil I had used in the wok for deep frying tofu. I was just going to toss it so I thought I would give it a try; waste not - want not. I filtered it and used it in the tuna tin. The parts I used are a part of an old curtain rod the jar and the handmade wick.

Step 1

I used the dart to poke a hole in the jar lid and then used a square screwdriver to widen the hole. I used the plyers to cut the rod and shape it as I needed it. I cut the rod so it would be sticking just above the jar.

Comments

[djr6789]

sweeeeet! im going to make one now

[michaelkaer]

I did my calculations and based on the jar holding about 250 ml ( about 1/4 of a quart) I estimated that it would take about 35 hours to burn all the oil in the jar or said a different way it sips oil at about a teaspoon and a half (around 7ml) per hour. I don't know if that is bad or good, but for the pennies it cost for the oil ( that I was going to toss out anyway) and a free recycled jar and the cotton string was just saved from a packages so again it cost me next to nothing, I would say that is alot of light for very little. The baby oil cost me $1.00 so 1/2 that is $.50. The curtain rod I just had laying around. if I had to pay for all the items and I had to even buy the wick, I would put the total cost of the project at about $1.00. I am going to experiment with sunflower oil next year, since I grow sunflowers and see how it works. I would love to get the cost down to even less than a dollar. If I press the oil myself, this could be a mostly sustainable project. Michael

[lukeyj15]

Well, I made a lamp out of a 400ml jar (about 0.8 of a pint) , and a unrolled and re-rolled cotton-wool ball. According to the above data (7ml an hour) my lamp would last about 4 months!!! (Don't think so, but who knows??)

[lukeyj15]

Here's a picture

[lukeyj15]

BTY: It has a green wick because i put water and green food dye in the bottom. (Experiment in capillary action)

[ChrysN]

Nice first instructable, does it smell like fried tofu when it's lit? Yum, that would make me really hungry.

[michaelkaer]

There is not a lot of smell to it, what you do mell is more of the baby oil than anything else When I had just the straight used oil, it had more of the tofu smell. Lke I said , I was just going to toss the oil after I had used it twice, so this was just a recycling experiment at the start. Thanks for the comment.