Your Mineral Spirits suggestion might still be critical to this project.
One of the reasons that I was hesitant to post my findings right away a few days ago was that I still had quite a bit of mineral spirits on the tank and I wanted to make sure it wasn't a factor.
Maybe it was.
Twice a day I topped off the font to bring what was probably a 50/50 mixture of mineral spirits and kerosene down to what I thought was almost all kerosene.
Yesterday I filled the font for the first time on 24 hours, which meant about 1/2 a tank. It was a bit cool yesterday... under 40F anyway. After I topped it off the normal "perfect flame" got a bit ragged. It went out once during the day... no wind when it happened.
It ran all night just fine, but again it went out during the day today with no wind present.
I suspect that I didn't have very much mineral spirits still in there when it was running nicely, but I am guessing at this point that even a small amount maybe made a difference. I made up a 10%/90% (spirits/kero) batch in my fuel can and filled the tank. The tank was maybe half empty when I filled it. When I relit it the flame settled down to a very nice burn.
So, at 40F 10% mineral spirits is probably more than is needed. Of course, it will get colder before it gets warmer. We see -25F around here in late January and early February, so there is plenty of room for experimenting.
Oh ya, the Kirkman #2 went out today. It seems that it is affected by a completly empty kerosene tank 
.
Rick
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