While messing with fuel and wick, I kept wondering why the flame was smokey and the globe sooted up so fast. Logic to me said that a fuel problem would have produced a lean burn, and soot and smoke should not have been produced. I kept trying to reason a way around it, but since nothing that I was trying was working, I went back to the possiblity of there being an air problem.
I had already hosed out the air tubes with my garden hose, and also ran a heavy weed wacker string down there with no effect. Running out of ideas, I got out a screwdriver and took the top end of the lantern completely off.
What I found up inside the upper 90 degree bends of the air tube amazed me. In spite of having hosed it down twice, both upper bends had spider webs in them. One side still had a healthy and active spider still hard at work.
So, I removed everything with more water aimed directly at the offending stuff and reassembled. If it started off burning perfectly right away I would have been more certain that I fixed it, but at first it didn't look much better. In fact, an hour after I had lit it it went out again.
I am guessing that the water that remained in the tubes from the cleaning process, which may have turned to ice after a while, was messing things up a bit. After a few hours the burn became what I have come to know as "normal". I still had some percentage of mineral spirits in the tank, but I have topped off the tank several times since then so it should be 99% or so kerosene at this point.
So, I guess the problem was simply related to lack of proper maintenance on my part, caused by my under-estimation of the structural strength of spider webs.
A good learning experience for me... next time I will catch on a bit quicker.
Rick
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