White gas?

Naphtha, as bottled by virgins.

Yes. You can get it at a hardware or paint store. Coleman Lantern Fuel is the same thing.

-- Ed Huntress

Coleman Camp Fuel...

Coleman fuel. White gas is "straight run" gasoline - no additives - not readily available today.

White gas..is Coleman fuel.

Unless the device specfies that it will run on unleades...IE "multi fuel"....dont use any form of gasoline. Gasoline has lots of other Stuff in it, that tends to coat,gum, plug and varnish up the internals of the working parts over time...often a very short time.

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Hidden as camp fuel at Walmart.

Speaking of which, it tends to sell in the gallon cans there at about twice the unleaded filling station gallon price. So this should be around $3 something again. The local Walmart has had neither Coleman brand or the store brand for weeks, and the shelf tag still has it at almost 9 dollars/gallon from last summer (when gasoline was 4.50/gallon). There is one badly dented up can that has been sitting there for months unsold.

Sure looks like the oil price has put the supply of this item into turmoil.

I am lucky when I can even get ONE gallon of Coleman fuel at the three Wal~marts around here. The local Amish population seem to arrive as they stock it, sort of like sharks to a chum bucket!

Same thing with plain "lamp oil"

I'd also be concerned that combustion residues from additives in unleaded gas would poison the catalyst. Why risk it?

I thought that's what I said. Use coleman fuel. REAL white gas in not coleman fuel but coleman fuel is the modern replacement.

White gas was used to run things like washing machine engines. Coleman fuel sucks as a motor fuel.

We used to be able to buy white gas from the local hardware store and Dad used it on his first roto-tiller. Leaded gas, the only alternative at the time, caused the valves to stick. White gas was used in the old pump type blowtorches too. Coleman fuel works just fine for them today.

A big concern indeed. I killed a Sears cat heater once, doing exactly that when I had no other fuel besides gasoline on hand.

Its an interesting door stop now.

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Lamp oil is nothing more than kerosene. You can buy a 5 gallon can of it at your local bulk plant, or from your favorite machine shop supply company. Check pricing FIRST....it tends to vary a lot.

Kerosene is used in a lot of screw machine shops for some machineing operations and for parts cleaning.

You can, in pinch...use #2 fuel oil in a kerosen lantern and diesel..but its more stinky and smokey.

Jet A works pretty well...very well actually...particularly in the Petromax lanterns that are intended for kerosene. Just make sure its not the Winter Mix with gasoline in it. Shrug

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Do you have a cite on that? I've certainly always been under the impression that Coleman fuel was white gas (modern? my recollection is that Coleman started marketing their own fuel in the 1920s).

But... lead is there as a lubricant...

I'd expect that.

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This stuff isn't straight kerosene, It is a blend of light oil and paraffin with none of the stench of kerosene. I can get K1 at the local station. I use it in the old salamander I have.

I use it in a Kerosun heater as well. That one is in the shop and gets used for heat now and again.

No, parrafin is British English for kerosene. Industrial chemists like to confuse customers with their product labels.

I don't know how you define "real" here, but Coleman fuel is the same run of petroleum distillate that was sold as "white gas" in olden days.

The problem with it as a motor fuel is the low octane rating from lack of antiknock additives.

I skipped the meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner Asch wrote on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:08:08 -0800 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

The story is told that back in the 40s, the Army Air Force lost a number of barrels of AV Gas in Alaska. Barge sank and they floated away as I recall. the reference is a four hour drive away. Well, there were a lot of folks who were really happy to have this bounty of fifty gallons of free gas. Till all the additives to give it that high octane number started causing problems. With Coleman lanterns, gas stoves, outboard motors ...

-- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

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The "lamp oil" can be kerosene - but is usually de-odorized kerosene or some other mix that doesn't stink nearly as bad, and doesn't soot up the chimneys nearly as bad either. It seams to be less "oily" - closer to Varsol, actually, than Kerosene.

Lead is there as a seat lubricant - not a guide lubricant. It is to prevent the valve head from welding to the valve seat and tearing out tiny peices of the seat. Stellite or induction hardened seats don't need lead - and the excessive lead in 100LL aircraft fuel causes "morning sickness" in many engines desighned for the old 87 octane avgas.

An engine designed for leaded gas has no reliability problems if leaded fuel is used even 1/50th of the time. A gallon of 100LL in 15 gallons of lead free every 10-20 tanks is adequate.

Coleman started bottling their own fuel at about the same time that "ethyl" gas became standard, because "ethyl" or leaded gas was detrimental to their products. Coleman fuel has changed its composition several times in the ensuing years. I have tried using it in a lawnmower engine and it didn't run worth a crap.. I have an old 4 stroke Iron Horse washing machine engine that used to be run on white gas almost exclusively