Emergency Lamps

Do you have cooking oil you will no longer use? Don't throw it away! 

Turn in into an emergency lamp for lighting your home.  

We no longer use seed oils for cooking, but we had nearly half a gallon of canola oil in storage from our last purchase a few years ago. We hated to give it away since it is no doubt rancid, but we also hated to throw it out and be wasteful. We knew there had to be something we could do with it. A while back we did a bit of searching and found a DIY project for a homemade emergency lamp that could use cooking oil in place of lamp oil. We decided to try it out and use the lamps as a centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner.

This is a simple project that takes very little time, but produces a beautiful and useful outcome.

Materials:

We happened to have 1/4" cotton wicks on hand, so we used those. While they work, I personally think that a smaller diameter might be better. The 1/4"size burns well, but they have a tendency to fray which can cause the flame to get rather large.

First, we tapped a hole big enough for the wick in a metal canning lid. A drill would make a much cleaner hole.

Then we cut a piece of wick long enough to wrap around the inside jar and pulled it through the hole. If your wick tends to fray and you have difficulty threading it through the hole, you can wrap a piece of tape around the end. It makes it easier to move it through the hole.

We read that with cooking oils, it is best for the wick to be as close to the oil as possible in order for the oil to better travel up the wick. With this in mind, we started with a short jar that would keep the wick close to the oil. Since we like to experiment, we made also made two larger sizes to see how they compare over time.

Next, we added fir tips, cloves, and cinnamon sticks to the inside of the jar. We put the bottom end of the wick in the jar, poured the oil over the top, and capped off the jar. Since we didn't have metal bottle caps, we twisted a paper clip into a wick holder to keep the wick from slipping down into the jar. This system worked well, but the paper clip and lid do get warm. If you have it, a bottle cap might help keep the larger lid from getting so hot.

We let the jars sit for a time to allow the oil to travel up the wick. We then lit the first lamp for a trial...it worked quite well!

With the fir tips, cinnamon sticks, and cloves, they are pretty enough to give away as gifts!