Inletting Black

[ron ward]

hey, capt.,
i know it's designed to leave a permanemt mark... i'm 3 mos. away from retiring from 30 yrs as a union carpenter! there isn't much i don't know or haven't done when it comes to wood and nails. i just got done with a very curley big-leaf maple laminated thumbhole stock and used it for all inletting. the stock was finsihed with my own recipe of rubbed on poly with just a touch of cherry stain in it to bring out the curl. so it was left pretty white in color and there is no red staining anywhere, not even in the action mortice and barrel chanel. believe, it works as i said, try it. simply dab a bit on your fingertip and wipe it evenly over the piece you want to inlet. it will leave good contact marks and no residue when you wipe your work down with spirits. as i said, i've been using it for years with good results. it's no more permanent than any of the accepted dies used for the same thing. lamp black is carbon for cripes sake and layout dye or machinist's dykem is blue ink... both pretty permanent on wood.

 

[ricklandes]

I like the hurricane lamp soot/black too. I have used the jewelry stuff and I come out looking like I lost a fight with the Bere Rabbit tar baby!

 

[skunkhead]

I have made inletting black like homers buy smokeing a flat piece of steel with an acetelene torch with pure acetelene and scraping it off on a folded piece op paper. I go and buy a tub naval jelly( I get it at the dollar store cause I am cheap) I put the tub in the microwave till its liquid and keep adding soot till I getthe consistancey I want. Idon't use a lot of inletting black so the the last tub I made will probably last years. Skunkhead PS It cleans up like homers and it hasn't stained like jarrows

 

[rabjr]

I like the hurricane lamp soot/black too. I have used the jewelry stuff and I come out looking like I lost a fight with the Bere Rabbit tar baby!

:rotf: Yeah I tend to turn white T-shirts kinda black, actually most things turn black, but it does work good. :thumbsup:

 

[Onojutta]

By hurricane lamp do you folks mean lantern?

I've never heard of a hurricane lamp before.

And does it matter what fuel you use?

 

[rabjr]

It's basically the picture shown here, with a bottom that holds lamp oil and a wick that lays into it. Mine is similar but not quiite like this one, mines actually an antique but it will do the same thing, just take off the top glass to expose the wick.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hurricane-lamp

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you ever seen a "railroad" lantern?? They are similar. Most run on oil( lamp oil) or kerosene. The lamp oil puts out more soot. White GAS will burn so fast in a kerosene lantern that the Glass will be coated in a thick layer of soot in no time flat![If for some reason you need a lot of lamp black in a hurry, of course. Please don't ask me how I know this bit of trivia! :haha: :rotf: ]

 

[necchi]

And does it matter what fuel you use?

I use the stuff ya git at wally world. It says "Candle and Lamp Oil" 99% pure Paraffin, guaranteed smokeless, odorless.

Well, it'll still smoke if ya turn the wick up high, doesn't work very well when temps are below 40 though, it gel's
And as others have mentioned it's carbon soot, and you can make a mess with it if your not carefull to be clean. I just do simple inlets deep enough for position then sand the wood down too it, :idunno:, cleans the wood that way.
I'm far from experianced as the many skilled craftsmen builders we have here, but I can muddle through K.I.S.S work.

 

[rabjr]

No idea whats in mine, smells almost like a Kerosene or similar. Probably been in the lamp for 20+ years. I have 4 of them around here just in case of a well...Hurricaine and we loose power. I happened to look over at one one day and and after seeing it thought it had to be better than a candle inletting a barrel. :haha: :thumbsup:

 

[kanati]

"White GAS will burn so fast in a kerosene lantern that the Glass will be coated in a thick layer of soot in no time flat!"

You're probably kidding around, but just in case someone is reading this and doesn't know, White gas or Coleman fuel is extremely dangerous in a kerosene lamp.

-Ron

 

[bob243]

I am going to experiment with the oil lamp trick. I went and picked one up this evening, it seems that the only way to get soot out of it is to turn it up until the top of the flame is near the top of the chimney. Is this normal? Should I worry about the glass breaking with it up that high?

Take the glass chiminey off and just use the bottom. I turn the wick up enough to light it and it just takes a second or two to blacked a part a little longer if your doing the length of a barrel. Then I just turn the wick down enough to put it out. I always wipe the part off before resooting. If you don't it will build up over time.

Just another thought this morning, Because of the flame, soot tends to wrap around a part and apply itself to areas where you may not need it.
I keep a damp cloth handy to wipe this soot off, that helps to keep your fingers and areas you don't want marked clean. And like swampy said I'll wipe the entire piece or even wash it after a few cycles to keep the build up in check.
There's just no fast way of doing a good inlet, fit,cut,,fit,cut,,,,fit,cut, put it down and walk away.,,,fit,cut,,,,

Tried it last night to find a tight spot in a barrel channel. Worked like a charm. Great tip, Thanks :hatsoff:

 

[rabjr]

"White GAS will burn so fast in a kerosene lantern that the Glass will be coated in a thick layer of soot in no time flat!"

You're probably kidding around, but just in case someone is reading this and doesn't know, White gas or Coleman fuel is extremely dangerous in a kerosene lamp.

-Ron

Huh? I never said anything about white gas or coleman stove fuel.

Whatever is in my lamp is lamp fuel, just been in there for a good 20 years or so. I don't know what brand or who put it in there, I can guess my father did at one point for back up lighting if the power went out.

 

[kanati]

Sorry Swampy,

I was responding to Paul.

-Ron

 

[paulvallandigham]

Okay, So you understand how these things happen. I bought a kerosene lamp. I went to the local hardware store to buy a can of kerosene. The clerk took me back to where they had cans of flammables on shelves. He showed me the can of Kerosene, and I told him that was what I wanted. He kept me from picking the can out of the shelf myself, and insisted on getting it for me, and carrying it to the check out counter. He reached down and picked up a can.

I thought he knew what he was doing. He didn't. I paid for the can, and it was put inside a huge paper sack- for reasons that never make sense to me. It has a handle on the top of the can. I took it home, and filled the reservoir of the lamp, never even thinking to read the label on the can. Whatever it was, it smelled strongly of alcohol when I open the can, so I just filled the lamp. I put the glass down over the wick, in a cage- and then used the knob on the side of the lamp to lift the glass up, to access the wick. I lit the wick with a long stick. Well, WHOOOSH! Instead of the modest flame I expected, I got a blow torch coming out of the top slits in my Railroader's lamp!

I turned the other knob that lowered the wick, and eventually got it low enough that the flame went out. Then, I picked up the can to see what the heck was this stuff I just lit. That is when I found out that the clerk had picked up a can of WHITE GAS, instead of kerosene.

Since I had opened the can, and used some of the fuel, I kept it. I bought a gallon of Real Kerosene( fuel oil) at another store a week later. The White Gas was finally used to burn off horse weeds at my BP club during our Spring clean up work party. I poured over the dead weeds, and around the dead grass, and we threw a burning wad of paper into the patch from some distance. Wow! One heckuva fire, in a big hurry. But, we burned out the weeds, and bared the ground, and within weeks we had new grass growing that we were now able to mow, instead of thick weeds that served no one.

Oh, there was a very thick layer of black soot on the inside of the Glass " hurricane lamp". I scraped it off with a pocket knife blade, and was astonished at how much lamp black ended up on the newspaper I used to collect it. There was at least two life-time supplies of lamp black there. When I had sliced off most of the soot I could reach, the glass was still mostly black on the inside, so the rest of the soot came out in the sink using soap and water. That was a real mess to clean up in the sink, too.

 

[Vaino]

I'm surprised that so many are using soot and having never used this "spotting" source, am interested in how fast this stuff is appled compared to a brush on paste or powder. When inletting, I'm very impatient asre the application of spotting stuff {not the w/ the inletting itself} and also am wondering if the "output" of a soot lamp contaminates the air thereby depositing soot throughout the work area and which eventually might find it's way into the rest of the house? Also...how much odor is produced? Not being facetious at all...just curious and looking for a faster way to apply spotting stuff.....Fred

 

[paulvallandigham]

The stuff I produced was light and " fluffy", and would need to be mixed with some oil, or grease to be used. As it was, it got all over everything.

I would not recommend trying to use powdered lamp black "as is" for marking a barrel or metal part you are inletting. It is pure soot, no different than the soot we occasionally had to vacuum up that came out the heating register at home when we were burning coal as a fuel. If you have ever had a chimney cleaned, you have some idea how nasty the stuff is to handle.

This is the reason I really didn't want to talk about how I learned how quickly you can produce Lamp Black in a kerosene lantern, by using White gas instead. :shocked2: :rotf: :idunno: :surrender: :cursing: :wink:

 

[necchi]

Well, WHOOOSH! Instead of the modest flame I expected, I got a blow torch coming out of the top slits in my Railroader's lamp!
,,,that the clerk had picked up a can of WHITE GAS, instead of kerosene.

:rotf: :rotf: Did ya ever go back an tell the clerk what he did?

 

[rabjr]

Well, WHOOOSH! Instead of the modest flame I expected, I got a blow torch coming out of the top slits in my Railroader's lamp!
,,,that the clerk had picked up a can of WHITE GAS, instead of kerosene.

:rotf: :rotf: Did ya ever go back an tell the clerk what he did?

I wanna know how long it took for his eye brows to grow back. :shocked2:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I never went after that clerk. I was afraid of what I would do to him!

I was lucky. Because of the way I lit the RR lamp, I only singed off some hair on my hand- not my face. :bow:

 

[Zonie]

BOY Paul. It's a good thing you weren't "blowing down the lamp" when it went off! :rotf: :rotf: