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🕯️ Light Without the Grid: Candles, Lamps & Lamp Oil

How to make your own light when the power is off for good and the kerosene runs out: tallow and beeswax candles, wicks, rushlights, which oils and fats burn in a lamp, lamps made from a jar or a can, kerosene lamps while the kerosene lasts, more light from a small flame, and staying safe from fire, fumes and poisoning. It goes deeper than "Fire and light without stores" in the Make-Do Household guide. The books are in Homestead-Skills\Soap-Candles (Practical Action's Candlemaking, Gilbert White's rushlight letter), Homestead-Skills\Household-Make-Do (Household Discoveries, Shifts and Expedients, Seton, Rural Lighting) and Nuclear-Radiation\Shelter-and-Protection (Kearny's tested jar lamps). Household Discoveries ("HD" below) is cited by the PDF's page number; the number printed on the page is 10 higher.

The short version

🧭 Which light for which job

Flames "produce more heat than light" (Rural Lighting, p. 2); a candle gives about 1 lumen (table in the Make-Do guide). Use LEDs first, while batteries and panels last (Off-Grid Power guide): a modern 1-watt LED matches 80 or more candles (arithmetic). Then kerosene for close work while it lasts, fat jar lamps for all-night light, candles to carry and read by, rushlights for everyday (rule of thumb), and daylight: White's working families burned no candles in summer "because they rise and go to bed by daylight" (White, p. 207). Per pound of fat, a tiny jar lamp runs about 128 hours and White's rushlights about 130 hours (1,600 rushes at half an hour each from 6 lb of grease) (arithmetic); a small store candle in a drafty room lasted "not much more than two hours" (White, p. 207).

🐖 Fat and wax: where it comes from and how much

Lard: 9–13% of a meat-type hog's live weight, 14–18% of a fat hog's; one meat-type hog "produces as much pork and lard as a family of two consumes in a year" (USDA FB 2138, p. 6). A 250-lb meat-type hog gives about 22–32 lb (arithmetic). Lard is soft: burn it in lamps, or harden it.

Tallow (beef, mutton, deer, elk): "the hard fat and tallow of any animal that may be killed should be preserved" for candles, if it can be spared from greasing axles (Shifts, p. 93). Deer and elk fat is "highly saturated" (it sets hard) and usually trimmed off the meat (NDSU, p. 5): save it. The library has no figure for tallow per steer or sheep. Render it first (chill, render within a week, slow heat, no copper, strain into jars): "Salt, sweeteners and fat" in the Food From Scratch guide.

Beeswax (rendering: "Beeswax: rendering and uses" in the Bees guide): bees eat about 8 kg of honey to make 1 kg of wax (FAO, p. 106). Frame hives give about 75 parts honey to 1 of wax, top-bar hives about 10 to 1 (p. 107). Unmanaged colonies seldom give over 25–30 lb of surplus honey, well-managed ones over 100 lb (USDA AH 335, p. 70). Estimate (arithmetic): a top-bar hive giving 30–100 lb of honey yields about 3–10 lb of wax a year; a frame hive giving 100 lb, only about 1⅓ lb. Pure beeswax chewed "does not stick to the teeth", and it keeps for years (FAO, p. 108). Wax may earn more as salve (p. 129): burn tallow and rushes every day (rule of thumb).

Bayberry wax: boil the autumn berries in water and skim off the wax that floats; it sets into "a cloudy green mass" for candles, "either pure or mixed with some common tallow" (Saunders, p. 276). Those are eastern shrubs; our coast's Pacific wax myrtle (Myrica californica) isn't in the library, so try a small batch the same way (rule of thumb). A year's needs (arithmetic): one jar lamp 4 hours a night burns about 11 lb of fat a year; White's family's rushes took about 9 lb of grease.

🧈 Cleaning and hardening tallow

Candle tallow "must be clear-grained fat" (HD p. 97). Simple cleaning (HD p. 179): render beef suet, mutton tallow or pork scraps, strain through coarse linen, and boil the fat in water with a little salt or alum. Cool it, lift off the cake of clean fat, scrape off the soft, dirty underside (p. 97), and dry the cake well, "or it will not keep sweet". Salty bacon-pot skimmings: set them "in a warm oven" so the salt sinks (White, p. 206).

Stronger cleaning (HD p. 97): boil 2–3 hours in weak potash or soda lye (wood-ash lye: "Soap from fat and ashes" in the Make-Do guide), skimming; next day scrape the soft part off the cake; repeat two or three days, the last day in water with 1 lb alum and 1 lb saltpeter per 30 lb of tallow. Lye burns: gloves, goggles.

Hardening. Even 3 parts mutton to 1 part beef tallow is "likely to be soft and often turn yellow, especially in summer time" (HD p. 97). So:

Pots and heat (Practical Action, pp. 3–4): aluminium or stainless steel; iron except for beeswax; no copper or brass; a jam or sugar thermometer; a double boiler whose water must not "boil away". Use an open fire only when nothing else will do; lid within reach.

A double boiler: the pot of wax stands inside a larger pot of water, with the heat under the water Melt wax in a pot standing in hot water, never dry over a flame (Practical Action, p. 3).

🧵 Wicks: making, pickling and sizing

Cotton only: braided cotton strands, "not cotton thread", and no lead-core wicks (Practical Action, p. 2). Cotton string or cloth strips work, but "Nylon cannot be used" (FAO, p. 130). Use "as many strands ... as the size of the candle requires" (HD p. 97); unravelled cotton yarn and old cotton knits are the usual source (rule of thumb).

Pickling (soaking) wicks makes them burn cleaner (HD p. 97). The safe recipes from that page:

Matching the wick to the candle (Practical Action, p. 2): "the larger diameter the candle, the thicker the wick". Too thick: the flame melts wax too fast and it drips. Too thin: it will "'drown' in its own wax pool". Beeswax needs a thicker wick than tallow. "Some trial and error testing is usually necessary": burn a test candle an hour out of drafts. You want a steady flame, the tip curling and glowing, and a pool that nearly reaches the rim without spilling. Spills: fewer strands. Shrinking flame: more. Write down what works (rule of thumb).

Three candles: the right wick gives a steady flame with the tip curling over and a pool nearly to the rim; a wick too thick gives a big flame and wax dripping down the sides; a wick too thin gives a small flame drowning in its pool Burn a test candle: fewer strands if it drips, more if the flame drowns (a diagram drawn for this guide).

🫕 Dipping candles step by step

You need: a pot of wax or tallow deeper than the candles are long, standing in a pot of hot water; a thermometer; a rod; cotton wicks; a smooth board; a cool place to hang them.

  1. Hang the wicks. Cut each twice the candle length plus a few inches and hang it over the rod to make a pair (Practical Action, p. 6), half a dozen to a rod (Shifts, p. 93), "a little more than twice the thickness of a candle" apart (HD p. 98).
  2. Heat to about 70 °C (158 °F), "a good starting point" (Practical Action, p. 4), "over a slow fire, but do not let it burn" (HD p. 98).
  3. Prime. First dip only: leave the wicks in about 2 minutes to drive out air and moisture. Draw each through your fingers to strip lumps, pull straight, and let harden (Practical Action, p. 4; HD p. 98).
  4. Dip for 3–4 seconds and lift out smoothly (Practical Action, p. 5). Touch the bottoms gently on a smooth board to take off the drip (HD p. 98).
  5. Cool 1–4 minutes, depending on the room (Practical Action, p. 5), in cool moving air if you can (HD p. 98).
  6. Repeat until thick enough. With several rods, dip "in rotation" so each cools in turn (Shifts, p. 93).
  7. Watch the wax. Too hot "will melt off more wax from the candles than it adds"; too cool, "a fine skin will form" and they go lumpy (Practical Action, p. 5).
  8. Finish: hang overnight, cut the pairs apart, trim the bases with a warmed knife (Shifts, p. 94).

Hand dipping in four steps: priming the wicks in the wax, dipping again and again to build thickness, the final dip, and hanging the pair of candles to cool Prime the wicks, dip to build the candles up, give a final dip, hang them to cool (Practical Action, p. 5).

Short of fat? Throw it into a bucket of hot water, where it "will soon melt and float upon the surface", and dip through that layer (Shifts, p. 93). It takes far less fat than a deep pot (rule of thumb).

🫙 Moulds, pouring and rolled beeswax candles

Tin moulds came "in frames of 6 or 13 tubes" (HD p. 96). Candles are moulded upside down: the tip forms at the bottom, where a small hole takes the wick.

  1. Prime the wick (Practical Action, p. 7). Loop one end over a stick across the top; thread the other down through the hole with a large darning needle (HD p. 98).
  2. Knot it under the hole (HD p. 98), or seal the hole with clay and tie the top to a pencil so the wick is tight and centred (Practical Action, p. 7).
  3. Pour at about 90 °C (194 °F) into the centre, and tap the mould to free air bubbles (p. 7).
  4. Fill the hollow that forms round the wick as it cools, but "Do not fill beyond the original wax level" (p. 8).
  5. When quite cold, pull them out by the wick loops (HD p. 98). If one sticks, cool the mould in cold water (p. 8).

Moulding a candle in five steps: thread the wick up through the mould, tie it to a stick and seal the hole, pour the wax, fill the hollow that forms, then remove the sealant and pull the candle out Thread and tie the wick, seal the hole, pour, fill the hollow, then pull the candle out (Practical Action, p. 8).

Pipe mould: Shifts used an 8–10 in piece of gun barrel; any straight, smooth metal pipe works. A stick through the wick loop across the top, the wick centred through a cork disc at the bottom, the end stopped; pour, and when cool "warm the mould slightly and the candle will draw out" (Shifts, p. 93). Split-tube mould: bamboo or a plant stem split lengthwise and tied shut, the wick centred by "small sticks"; open it when the wax is solid (FAO, p. 130).

Beeswax is "soft and sticky ... difficult to mould in rigid moulds" (Practical Action, p. 2). Instead:

📚 Go deeper: Practical Action Candlemaking, pp. 4–9 — dipping, pouring, moulding and container candles, with step drawings; HD pp. 96–99 — wicks, frames, moulds and tallow recipes.

🛠️ Why candles drip, smoke or drown

The flame melts a pool of wax, the wick soaks it up, and the heat turns it to vapour; a well-made candle burns down evenly "and dripping will not occur" (Practical Action, p. 1).

Trouble Likely cause Fix
Drips, runs down one side Wick too thick (Practical Action, p. 2); a draft; soft fat Thinner wick; screen it, since candles "waste rapidly unless screened from the wind" (Shifts, p. 94); harden the tallow
Drips and sputters Warm, soft candle Chill on ice 2–3 hours (wick off the ice); rub a pinch of salt into the wick (HD p. 99)
Flame shrinks and drowns Wick too thin More strands; pour off the pool and relight (rule of thumb)
Smoke and soot Long, charred wick; dirty fat Trim the wick; clean the tallow; beeswax candles "do not smoke as most other candles do" (FAO, p. 130)
Wick smoulders when put out Blown out downward Hold it above your mouth and blow upward (HD p. 99)
Hard to light Match held to the top Light the side of the wick (HD p. 99)
Holes or a sunken top Air bubbles, shrinking Tap the mould; fill the hollow (Practical Action, p. 7)

Storing: beeswax changes little over time (FAO, p. 108). Tallow softens and yellows in summer (HD p. 97): keep candles cool and dark, in the root cellar through our hot, dry summers (rule of thumb); bleach yellowed ones in "dew, air, and sunshine" (HD p. 99). Keep tallow, candles and fat in lidded tins: mice eat them and grease draws bears (rule of thumb). Keep wicks and matches dry in a closed jar (Kearny, p. 104).

🌾 Rushlights: Gilbert White's measured method

A rushlight is the white pith of a rush, held up by one strip of its skin, dipped in fat and burned like a thin candle (Rushlight). Gilbert White weighed, counted and timed them in Letter 26 of The Natural History of Selborne (1775). He used "the common soft rush", found "in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges", best "in the height of summer", and "the largest and longest are best" (White, p. 205). Soft rush (Juncus effusus) grows in wet pastures and ditches around the valley (rule of thumb).

Making them (White, p. 206):

  1. Cut the longest rushes and put them in water at once, "for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run".
  2. Peel off the green skin, leaving "one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom" to hold up the pith.
  3. Bleach and dry: lay them on the grass to "take the dew for some nights", then dry them in the sun.
  4. Dip them in "scalding" fat (a knack learned by practice): bacon-pot skimmings, salt settled out in a warm oven. "A little wax" makes them cleaner and burn longer; "mutton-suet would have the same effect".

White's numbers: "about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes" (p. 206). A pound of dry rushes held "upwards of one thousand six hundred" (p. 207). A rush 2 ft 4½ in long burned "three minutes short of an hour", a longer one an hour and a quarter (p. 206), with "a good clear light" (p. 207). "One pound and a-half of rushes completely supplies his family the year round", since working people went to bed by daylight in summer (p. 207). (Arithmetic:) that is about 2,400 rushlights and 9 lb of grease a year; at White's cautious half hour each, 1,200 hours, over 3 hours a night on average.

Burning them (rule of thumb): hold the rush slanting in a clip or split stick on a heavy base, over a tin or a dish of sand to catch drips; move it up as it burns; never leave one alight in an empty room. Leave two ribs of skin on and it burns slower and dimmer, like the old "watch-lights" (White, p. 207): a night light.

Making a rushlight: cut long soft rushes and keep them in water; peel off the green skin leaving one narrow rib holding up the white pith; dip in hot fat; burn slanting in a holder on a heavy base over a dish of sand Leave one rib of skin to hold up the pith, and burn the rush slanting over sand (a diagram drawn for this guide).

🫒 Lamp oils: what burns and what doesn't

Good: kitchen fats, "lard, bacon grease, vegetable shortening, or vegetable oil" (ORNL-4941, p. 44), and non-drying oils like olive oil, which "become rancid and thicken ... but do not dry up" (HD p. 366). HD names lard oil, neat's-foot oil (boiled from cattle feet), olive, colza and rape-seed oil together (p. 367). Animal and fish oils are "very similar to the nondrying vegetable oils", though fish oil can smell "very offensive" (pp. 366–367); Northwest peoples burned the eulachon, or candlefish, for light (Shifts, p. 94). Hard fats like tallow need a soft-fat lamp whose flame warms the dish (below).

Not good: drying oils like linseed (flax) "oxidize ... into a hard, resinous varnish" (HD p. 366): expect a gummed, crusted wick. The book doesn't test this in a lamp; it follows from the varnish (rule of thumb).

The catch with vegetable oil: it is safe, "but their disadvantage is that they do not rise in the wick-carrier" (WHO, p. 106). So keep the wick short, the flame just above the oil (ORNL-4941, p. 309), or float it. As the oil drops, top it up or lower the wick holder (rule of thumb).

Clarifying and storing: let oil settle a few days and pour off the top; to dry it, boil gently, stand, filter through cloth and heat briefly to 100 °C (212 °F) (Oil Extraction, pp. 5–6). Wet oil sputters (rule of thumb). For rancid or smelly animal oil, filter it through a burlap bag lined with flannel with charcoal quilted between, or stir clean charcoal lumps into it over a slow fire and strain (HD p. 367). Store it "in lightproof, airtight and moisture-proof containers in a cool place", never copper (Oil Extraction, p. 6), and don't leave lamps filled for months (Kearny, p. 104). Burn the old oil, eat the fresh (rule of thumb).

Pressing oil: rape seed is 40–45% oil, mustard 25–45%, sunflower and sesame 25–50%, safflower 30% (Oil Extraction, p. 1). Dry and clean the seed, throw out mouldy ones, dehull sunflower (p. 1); soft seeds and nuts can be hand-pressed, hard ones need a ram press (p. 2). A cage press (a perforated metal cage under a plunger) can be driven by a screw or a car jack: raise the pressure slowly, and beware a leaking hydraulic jack's "poisonous hydraulic fluid" (p. 3). Nut meats: boil, add salt, skim (p. 2). Every pint burned is a pint not eaten: press for food first (rule of thumb).

Never gasoline or mixed fuels in an open lamp

🪔 Lamps you can make

Fuel use: with the smallest practical wick, about 1 oz of oil or fat in 8 hours (Kearny, p. 104), or "about 3 ounces ... in 24 hr" (ORNL-4941, p. 308). 1 lb of fat lasts about 128 hours, five days and nights (arithmetic). Wicks: cotton string, cloth or rag; in the bush, plant fibres, beaten bark or peeled rush (Shifts, p. 91). Flat kerosene wicks: "Save old felt hats", or hem a strip of cotton stocking or flannel about three times the burner's width (HD pp. 139–140).

Wire-stiffened jar lamp

From Oak Ridge's tested drawing (ORNL-4941, p. 309):

  1. Base: two bent nails, about ½ in shorter than the jar is wide, tied one across the other so it won't rock.
  2. Wick: cotton string "slightly less than ⅛-in. in diameter". Tie a fine wire (window-screen wire) round the nails at its middle, and wind its ends in opposite directions up the string so it stands stiff.
  3. Oil: fill the jar no more than half full of cooking oil or fat, with the "flame from end of wick ... just above oil surface".
  4. Reflector: foil ⅔ of the way around the jar and under its bottom. Hang it on light wire by a loop "large enough for finger".
  5. Light it with a match tied to a stick. To put it out, drip oil on the wick. Keep spare wire and string.

Oak Ridge's wire-stiffened-wick lamp: a glass jar no more than half full of cooking oil, a cotton wick stiffened with fine wire standing on two crossed bent nails, the flame just above the oil, and a wire loop to hang it by Oak Ridge's tested lamp: kitchen fat only, the jar no more than half full, the flame just above the oil (ORNL-4941, p. 309).

Floating-wick lamp

From the drawing (ORNL-4941, p. 310):

  1. A block of soft pine ½ in narrower than the inside of the jar (2½ in for a 3-in jar), about ¾ in high.
  2. A V-notch across the top: 5 even saw cuts, then whittle it out, leaving about 3/16 in under it. Bore a snug wick hole through the bottom of the notch with a knife point, from both sides.
  3. A wick 1/16–3/32 in thick (thin cotton string or twisted threads). Float it on oil in a half-full jar with the same reflector. When not in use for days, take the wood out of the oil.

Oak Ridge's floating-wick lamp: a notched soft-pine block with a thin cotton wick through it floats on cooking oil in a half-full glass jar hung from light wire A notched pine block floats the wick; take the wood out of the oil when the lamp sits unused for days (ORNL-4941, p. 310).

Shifts floats a wick on "bottle wire and three bits of cork": "half an inch of wick is enough to last all night"; but rats can upset a lamp and carry off the burning wick (p. 93).

Hunter's lamp and soft-fat lamps

Can lanterns and candle holders

Seton's camp lights: a hunter's lamp made from a shell of grease with the wick held up by a flat stone, a can with a candle pushed up through a hole in its side, a bottle lantern, and a tomato can punched full of holes with a candle inside A hunter's lamp with its flat stone, a can lit through a side hole, and a punched tomato-can lantern (Seton, p. 240).

🛢️ Kerosene lamps while the kerosene lasts

Storage and heaters: "Kerosene and propane" in the Fuel guide. Keep it in a metal can marked KEROSENE, not red, never an old gasoline can, outside the house away from where children play (MSU E-1669, p. 4). Good kerosene is "clear and nearly colorless, like water" (HD p. 92).

  1. Each morning, by daylight: clean, fill, trim (HD p. 138). Never fill a lamp while it is burning (p. 93) or hot. Fill to within about ½ in of the top, since "the oil expands with heat and runs over"; wipe it dry (p. 139; p. 92).
  2. Trim by rubbing the char off with a finger or burnt match: "Don't cut it; you can't cut it even" (p. 92). The wick must reach the bottom (p. 138); renew it "every month or two, no matter how fresh it looks" (p. 92).
  3. Keep the burner's air holes clear; once a month, boil the burner in washing soda or lye water (p. 92).
  4. Light it low and turn it up slowly; if steam fogs a cold chimney, keep it low till that clears (p. 139). Too high or too low, it smokes; set the screw back a touch so the wick won't creep up (p. 94).
  5. Turn it low before blowing it out and when carrying it. Use lamps with "a broad, solid base", and don't light one that has stood part-empty a long time (p. 93).

Chimneys and spares: the right chimney gives "perhaps twice as much" light; a cold draft or the flame touching a hot chimney cracks it (p. 93). Toughen new ones by boiling 10–15 minutes in strong salt water, wrapped in cheesecloth, and cooling them in the water (p. 139). Keep "two or three extra chimneys and burners, and a yard or two of wicking", with lamps all alike so parts swap (p. 138). For a night light, don't turn a lamp low (it throws off unburned carbon); use a small lamp turned up (p. 94). Kerosene-soaked rags in a heap can catch fire on their own (p. 138). Pressure lanterns are brighter but "noisy", "hot" and "troublesome to start" (Rural Lighting, pp. 3–4), and burn about 5 litres a week at six hours a night (pp. 6–7). No kerosene lamps in a small closed room: "They produce gases that can cause headaches or even death" (Kearny, p. 104).

🔆 Getting more light from a little flame

🧯 Fire, fumes, burns and children

Putting out a fire:

Where lamps go: a safe lamp is "short and heavy", with "two flat sides" so it won't roll, a screw-on metal lid and thick glass, and never at a table's edge; light bottle lamps "could easily topple, igniting the clothes of a child" (WHO, p. 106). "Keep lamps and matches out of reach of children" (Where There Is No Doctor, p. 22).

Hanging lamps: the books disagree. FEMA says hanging helps "prevent lamps from being knocked over" (H-4, p. 76); WHO says "not to hang the lamps on walls" (p. 106), where a lamp on a nail sits by a sleeping child; a barn lantern on a pulley stays above the hay forks (Handy Farm Devices, p. 115). Our rule: hang lamps from an overhead wire, away from walls, curtains, shelves and beds, above head height, with nothing that burns above them or within their swing; an earthquake will set them swinging (rule of thumb).

Children and kerosene: fuel and lamp oils are the commonest child poisons in poorer countries, kerosene alone up to 16% of cases, mostly children 1 to 3 years old (WHO, p. 145). Child-resistant caps are "the only proven intervention"; use dark containers, as kerosene "may be easily mistaken for water" (p. 152), and dyeing it blue cut poisonings in Australia (p. 153). "Never keep kerosene, gasoline, or other poisons in cola or soft drink bottles" (Where There Is No Doctor, p. 29). If swallowed: do not make them vomit (same page), and no activated charcoal (Book for Midwives, p. 12); see the Field Care guide.

Carbon monoxide and soot:

Burns from hot wax and fat: keep children away from the candle pot and turn pot handles in. Put a burn in clean, cool water (not ice) right away, for no longer than 20 minutes; "Never put ice, grease, fat ... on a burn" (Where There Is No Doctor, p. 22). Leave cooled wax stuck to the skin; it comes off as the burn heals (rule of thumb). Big or deep burns: "Burns" in the Field Care guide.

After a quake, storm or fire: "Do not smoke or use oil, gas lanterns, candles, or torches for lighting inside a damaged home until you are sure there is no leaking gas or other flammable materials present" (FEMA Are You Ready?, p. 183). Check with a flashlight; if you smell gas, see "If you smell gas" in the Fuel guide.

📚 Go deeper: Kearny, ch. 11 "Light" — shelter lights and tested lamps; HD pp. 90–100 — kerosene lamps and candles in 1909.

⚠️ Old advice in the library to ignore

Book says Do this instead
A burning lamp: "seize it and throw it out of the window" (HD p. 95) Smother it where it stands with a heavy wool rug (the same page's second choice); sand or earth on spilled oil.
Throw "milk or any dry, heavy substance, as flour, corn meal" on burning oil (HD p. 95) Sand or earth. Milk is mostly water; flour thrown as a cloud can flare (rule of thumb).
Wick solution with chloride of lime and chloride of ammonia (HD p. 97) Chloride of lime is bleach; with an ammonia salt it gives off poison gas. Use the lime-and-saltpeter or turpentine soak, or plain primed cotton.
Hard tallow candles with camphor (HD p. 97) Leave the camphor out; it is poisonous if a child eats it (rule of thumb). Alum or beeswax does the hardening.
Make stearin with sulphuric acid; harden lard and beeswax with nitric acid (HD p. 98) No acids. Harden with alum or beeswax (HD pp. 97, 99).
Run fish oil into a lead-lined vat "acidulated with blue vitriol" (HD p. 367) Lead and blue vitriol (copper sulphate) are poisons. Use the charcoal filter bag from the same page.
Old or salvaged candles with lead-core wicks Don't burn them indoors; cotton wicks only (Practical Action, p. 2).

🖼️ Pictures & diagrams

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