thats neat, how does it burn in the lanterns?
That is a complicated question.
A lot depends on the lanter.
His distilation process pulls the lightest ends off first so what he has is a combination of two things.
First runnings some of which he looses to evaporation and he lieaves the heavier ends behind. In theory if the volatility is right it should realy make no difference as compared to camping fuel.
Reality is different.
What he gets is a bit heavier that Pure refined Nahptha.
How this effects a gasoline lantern also depends on the generator design and other additives adjuncts to the fuel. Ethanol methanol blends are obviously leaner and in some cases a little cooler burning and this can be measured.
Now the volitility issue comes into play.
Coleman fuel is good for generators.
It tends to clog less, but the bad news is its TOO volitile for some older lanterns. Take the 236 for example when it was designed in 1938 whiet gas was common, infact cars burned it so everyone had some. Since very few of us ( including Oldsalt ) are old enough to remember what 1930s gasoline looked and smelled like we have to look at the cars/engines of the era. In short it was a wider cut fuel than we see today. With more kerosene like components and when fresh often many very light ends.
This wider mix the advantage in a narrow body gen in a high powered lantern of being easy to light but with components that would not flash off as fast. In essence the gen itself acted a little like a distilation tower.
So the effect is more predictable and stable vapourization in the gen.
Modern camping fuel does not agree with with the 236-2991 gen in the 236.
In 1970 when this lantern was pahsed out of production in favour of the 635 ( BTW these single mantle big frames that the Amish like are actualy Canadian designs from the Toronto factory, American tastes however were different and the Canadian big frames although produced in the USA for a short time were never popular as compared to the 220 series but I digress ).
Coleman engineers modified the basic 236 gen internal working for smoother vaporization and often people in the know will gut a Canadian G6 generator and gas jet tip to try and tune up and lean up 236.
The logical conclusion of this is the 635B gen made in Witchata today that works even better than the Canadian G6 ( but it has no common or interchangable parts with he 236-2991 ).
Now there are other lanterns ( generaly Canadian again but with US equivs ) like the 247 ( the small frame as its known ). In Canada these lanterns used the T66 or the TK66 ( K for Kerosene ) and were sold as dual fuel lanterns. These will burn camping fuel but also have some vaporization issues that result to a lesser degree in the same sort of nervous flicker you can see in the 236. On the other hand running pure unleaded pump gas in these works just fine and they tend to flicker much less.
When we get into the big guys like the 237, and 639 these are also generaly a dual fuel lantern too ( not markled so in the US version though ). THese will burn just about anything too but for best performance they like a mix a of around 25% nahptha and 75% K1.
People around the menonite ( Amish ) will often here about them usingthis mix to both improve the performance of the lanterns by having a wider cut fuel and longer generator life thanks to the cleaner vapourzation qualities of pure Nahptha.
Now designs like the 220 series with the two mantles have a couple of advantages.
Although they burn more fuel per foot candle than the big frames. They heat the generator a little more uniformly.
This results in less flicker and sensitivity to fuel quality.
Part of the reason these types were so dominant before the big and small frames of the 1930s onward.
But Americans still like the 2 mantle design and this is considered camping so the stykle hangs on even though the fuel today is som much better
Me I just made a better packing and stuck with gasoline
Thank you for reading this far. This has been a very long off topic bullshit lecture on the feeding habbits of Coleman lanterns in the wild.
This is a non credit course, but you will be expected to write the exam at the end of the semestor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI73csZkzlw