Scallop Shell Lamp - How to...

[mace242]

This was originally posted on my blog. Tony asked me to post it in full so enjoy...


For me a big part of what I call bushcraft is the skills and practices of ancient man. How our ancestors lived and the skills they had that ensured enough of them survived for us to be here today. Here I'm going to show you how to make a very simple lamp that would have been used to light caves.


Remains of lamps such as this have been found in the caves at Kent's Cavern in Devon. So they were literally used by cave men tens of thousands of years ago.


There are three things you'll need to make this lamp:

Scallop shell, suet and dried moss

Some dried moss, a scallop shell and some suet. I have had no luck whatsoever using veggie suet. What I have shown above is some finest beef suet I got from a butcher - it's really cheap.


Firstly you will have to render the suet to make tallow. Tallow is basically just boiled suet. I put the suet in a pan and boil it until it has all melted and gone clear. As I used proper stuff from a butcher there are impurities that I got rid of by pouring the melted suet through a strainer.


A strong word of caution. Hot melted suet will really really hurt if you get it on you. Be very careful handling this stuff. It is boiling oil - the stuff they fry chips with!

I then place the dried moss in the shell and pour the suet on it. Then I let it set.

Prepared lamp

And that is what you get. It's a tallow candle with moss as the wick. This would keep for some time and stay solid at room temperature. Now for the lighting. And it is a really good idea to burn these things outside unless you want your house to smell like a burning chip shop!

When lit they produce a dull orange flame.​

mmmm - smells like chips

Quite fun and only takes a little while.

 

[Toddy]

Thank you for the post very clear

How smokey do you find it to be? and how long did it burn for ? A pine splint lasts about 20 minutes or so.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[mace242]

Thanks loads. There is a fair bit of smoke. Burn time would be similar but with tweaks and burn angle changes i think well over half an hour could be done. Perhaps I need to experiment a bit.

 

[lannyman8]

thats really good, the best things are the most simple...

thanks for sharing.

regards.

chris.

 

[lannyman8]

Thanks loads. There is a fair bit of smoke. Burn time would be similar but with tweaks and burn angle changes i think well over half an hour could be done. Perhaps I need to experiment a bit.

if you placed another shell over 3/4 of the other the burn time would be greatly increased, it would act more like a wick then drawing fuel from the back towards the burning area at the front, ad-least thats the thought anyway...

good work...

 

[Toddy]

The Inuit use a slab of fatty blubber that they pound a bit to spread it out, and then they set one edge alight; it slowly burns across the piece.
On your other thread (can't recall his ID properly, the Irish ranger fellow) said that the spore tube part from the bracket fungi works well as a wick; do you think a wide thin slice of the fomes stuff would work like that on this scallop light ?
I have masses of the fomes broken out. I've been making the cloth from the trama layer but the inner stuff usually just goes into tinder bundles, faggots and the dye baths.....but I have scallop shells in the garden

cheers,
M

 

[mace242]

I think that for the formes to work you would need an oil rather than a fat.

 

[Toddy]

I wondered that. I wasn't sure if the fomes put into the melted suet would be enough to soak through to the ends or if the burning would create enough heat to melt the suet behind the flame to keep feeding it.

Oh well.

cheers,
M