The Oil Lamp That Just Keeps Burning... No Electricity Needed.

[00:00:00]The power goes out on a winter evening and the whole house goes dark and quiet all at once. And you stand there in the black feeling for the drawer where you think the flashlight is. And when you find it, the batteries are dead because they always are. And you have candles somewhere, but not many, and they burn down fast, and you are rationing them by the second night. And meanwhile, there is a light you could make right now from a jar and a little cooking oil and a scrap of cotton that will burn steady and bright for hours and hours on almost nothing and that you can feed and keep burning as long as you have oil in the house. It is one of the oldest lights there is and folks have forgotten it entirely. And I am going to show it to you. I am Elias Yodar, and in a house not tied to the public power, a light you can make with your own hands is not a novelty. It is how you see after dark.

[00:01:05]So, let me teach you the old oil lamp, the real one, the kind that lit the whole world before there was a wire run to anybody's house. Let me say one thing, and then I will not bring it up again. I have gathered these old ways into a book over at eliasoder.com.

[00:01:26]If you want it, it is there. That is all. Now, let us make a light. But first, before a single step, I am going to give you the safety and I am putting it right here at the front where you cannot skip past it. Because what we are making is an open flame, a real fire, small but real. And a fire must be respected or it will turn on you. This lamp is a flame. Treat it exactly as you would treat any candle or any open fire in your house because that is what it is. Never leave it burning alone in a room. Never go to bed with it lit. Set it on something that will not burn and that it cannot tip off of. well away from curtains and paper and anything that could catch, and where a child or a cat cannot reach it or knock it over. An oil lamp knocked over is spilled fuel and a spreading flame, so it must sit where it is steady and safe. Watch it while it burns. Put it out when you leave the room. And this old light is a comfort and a blessing.

[00:02:44]Ignore those plain rules and any flame, this one or a store candle either is a danger. The rules are the same for all fire. Respect it and it serves you. Now with that firmly understood, let me show you the beautiful old thing. Here is the whole idea of it. And once you see it, you will understand every oil lamp that has ever been made. From the plainest clay dish the ancients used to the finest brass lamp on a parlor table. It is only this oil does not burn easily on its own. You cannot really set a puddle of oil al light and keep it going. But a wick, a bit of cotton, draws the oil up into itself, up to the top where the air is. And there, at the very tip, the flame burns the oil as fast as the wick can bring it up. The wick itself is barely consumed. It just keeps drawing up oil, and the flame just keeps burning that oil drop by drop for as long as there is oil to draw.

[00:04:00]That is the whole secret. The wick is a ladder the oil climbs to reach the flame. And the flame stays up at the top of the ladder sipping oil hour after hour. And that is why it burns so long on so little. A candle has to melt its own wax and it uses itself up. An oil lamp just sips from a reservoir of oil sitting there in the dish. And a small dish of oil will burn for many hours.

[00:04:32]And when it runs low, you simply add more oil and it keeps right on going.

[00:04:38]There is nothing to use up but the oil itself. Feed it oil and it burns.

[00:04:46]That is why folks read and swed and lived their whole evenings by these for thousands of years. I think of my grandmother's kitchen in the evening because that is where I first understood what a light like this really means to a person. There was a lamp on the table and when the light began to go in the evening, she would trim the wick and light it. And that one small flame changed the whole room, drew the family in around the table, and the evening's work and talk happened in its glow. And what struck me, even as a boy, was that she was never afraid of the dark coming, the way I think folks are a little afraid of it now, without knowing they are, forever reaching for a switch. She was not afraid because the light did not come from somewhere far away that could fail her. It came from her own hand, from oil she had and a wick she made.

[00:05:47]And no storm and no company and no failure anywhere could take it from her.

[00:05:54]She owned her light. And I have thought since that there is a kind of peace in that which the switch on the wall does not give you. for all its convenience. A person who can make her own light is not at anyone's mercy when the dark comes.

[00:06:12]That is worth more than the small trouble of it. And it is the real reason I want you to know this. More than the saving of a battery.

[00:06:22]Now, let me show you how to make the simplest one, the kind you could make tonight in a blackout from what is in your kitchen. And then I will show you how to make it nicer.

[00:06:33]You need a container. And here is where the safety starts. So, listen close. You want a vessel that will not burn and will not tip and will not crack from a little warmth. A glass jar, a good, sturdy one, a canning jar or a thick drinking glass is fine and lets the light shine through pretty. A small metal can or tin works. A little bowl of clay or stone. What you do not want ever is anything plastic because plastic near a flame melts and can catch. And I have seen folks online building these out of a cut plastic bottle and it makes me wse because that is putting plastic right next to fire and it is a poor and dangerous idea.

[00:07:24]Glass, metal, clay or stone. Never plastic near this flame.

[00:07:31]Now, here is the first old trick, and it is a good one. You do not fill the whole vessel with oil. You put water in the bottom first, a good bit of water, and then you float the oil on top of it.

[00:07:46]Because oil floats on water, it will not mix. It sits in a layer right on top.

[00:07:52]And this does two clever things. First, it lifts your oil up near the top of the jar where you want it. So you use far less oil to get the flame up where it can be seen. The water down below doing the job of filling space for free. And second, it is a margin of safety.

[00:08:13]Because as the flame burns the oil down, when the oil is finally gone, the flame reaches the water and simply goes out quiet and safe rather than burning the last of anything dry.

[00:08:27]So, water in the bottom, oil floating on top, an old and sensible arrangement.

[00:08:34]For the oil, you want a vegetable oil, and olive oil is the finest of them for this, and the most traditional by far.

[00:08:42]Olive oil has lit lamps for longer than there has been history written down, and it burns clean and bright, and it hardly smokes. And here is a thing worth knowing. Olive oil in the bulk is very hard to set a light. It is not like the volatile fuels. So it is about the safest oil you can burn. But olive oil is dear. So for every day you can burn other vegetable oils too. A plain cooking oil and they work though some smoke a bit more than the good olive oil. Any of them will burn. Use the cheap oil for practice and the olive oil when you want the cleanest, sweetest light. And let me be plain about what to burn and what not to burn because this matters for your safety. The vegetable oils, the olive and the plain cooking oils are what you want because they are hard to set a light in the dish and they burn slow and gentle at the wick. What you must never do is pour gasoline or lantern fuel or paint thinner or any of those volatile quick burning fuels into a little open jar lamp like this. Those are a different beast entirely. Their fumes catch and flash and they are made for sealed lanterns built to handle them, not for an open dish on your table. A jar of gasoline with a flame near it is not a lamp. It is an accident waiting to happen. So this open oil lamp is for the gentle vegetable oils only, the kind you cook with. Old bacon grease or other soft animal fats melted will even burn in a pinch. The old folks burned all manner of fats and tallows, though they smoke and smell more than the clean olive oil. But the volatile fuels never. Cooking oils and soft fats only in an open lamp like this. And here is a thrifty note that will please you.

[00:10:41]The oil left from cooking, strained clean of the food bits, will burn in your lamp. You need not burn good, fresh oil. Strain your used cooking oil through a cloth to get the crumbs out, and it will light your lamp just fine.

[00:10:56]One more thing saved that most folks pour away. Now, the wick. And here is where I will steer you right because the wick matters. The best wick is a bit of cotton. A [clears throat] strip cut from an old cotton rag. A piece of cotton string or twine, a cotton shoelace, even a bit of a cotton ball rolled up tight.

[00:11:17]Cotton because it is a natural fiber that draws the oil up beautifully and burns slow and steady. You can make do in a pinch with a twist of paper or a bit of napkin the way you will see folks do. But I will tell you honestly, it burns down fast and flares and is a poor wick. So if you have any cotton at all, use the cotton. It is far better and far steadier and far safer. And the wick needs to float to sit up at the top of the oil with its tip in the air. And for that, you want a little floater. And here again, nothing plastic. The old way is a small piece of cork, which floats fine and does not burn readily, with a little hole poked through the middle for the wick to stand up through. A bit of cork from a bottle is perfect. Some folks use a small metal washer or a bit of metal foil folded into a little raft.

[00:12:09]What you want is a small non-burning float that holds the wick standing straight up with just the tip poking above the oil. Poke your wick up through the cork so a little bit stands proud on top, the part that will flame, and the long tail of it hangs down into the oil to drink. Now, here is the most important small detail. And get this right and the lamp works. get it wrong and it will not. The bottom tail of the wick must reach down into the oil and drink from it, but the flame at the top must be up above the oil in the air. And the wick must not reach all the way down into the water below the oil. If the wick pulls up water instead of oil, it will not burn. It will just sputter and die. So, you trim the wick so its tail sits down in the oil layer drinking oil, but not so long it dips into the water beneath. The tip stands up in the air to burn. The tail drinks from the oil and it never touches the water. Get that arrangement and you have a lamp. To light it, you let the wick sit a moment first so the oil soaks all the way up through the cotton to the tip because a dry wick will not catch. It is the oil in the wick that burns. Wet the tip of the wick with a little of the oil. Let it soak up through and then touch your flame to it and it will catch and settle into a small steady flame. And there is your light. And it will burn and burn and burn. A small dish like this will give you hours of steady light. And when the oil burns low, you just pour in a little more oil right into the jar and top it up. And it keeps right on going.

[00:13:46]That is why I called it the lamp that just keeps burning because you feed it and it does not quit the way a candle quits when it is gone. As long as you have oil in the pantry, you have light.

[00:13:57]And every kitchen has oil. Now, let me show you how to make it a nicer, steadier lamp than the quick blackout version. Because with just a little more care, you have a proper lamp you can keep and use for years. Instead of the floating cork, an even better old arrangement is a wick held in the center of the jar by a bit of wire. You take a length of wire and bend it into a little stand or a coil that sits in the bottom or hooks over the rim and it holds a metal tube or just holds your wick standing straight up in the center, its tail down in the oil. A steadier flame than the floater gives and you can make it once and keep it. Some folks take a jar lid, punch a hole in the center, and run the wick up through the hole, and that holds it nice and straight and keeps the flame in the middle. There are a dozen ways, and they all come down to the same thing. Hold the cotton wick standing up straight with its tail in the oil and its tip in the air, steady and centered. And a word on the size of the flame, because this is how you keep it safe and clean. You want a small, calm flame about the size of a candle flame or a little smaller. If your flame is big and smoky and reaching up tall, your wick is standing up too high out of the oil and you trim it down shorter so less of it stands proud and the flame comes down small and clean. A small flame is a safe flame and a clean burning flame. A tall smoky flame is too much wick. So trim the wick to keep the flame small and steady, and it will burn clean and bright without soot. And to put it out, you do not blow at it and send hot oil spattering. You simply snuff it, a little metal snuffer, or the back of a spoon laid over the flame to smother it. Or you dip the wick down into the oil for a moment and lift it back, and it is out clean with no spatter, and the wick already oiled and ready for next time. And when it is cool, you can cover the jar and set it on the shelf. Oil and wick and all, ready to light again in a moment, the next time the dart comes early or the power fails. A lamp made and kept ready is worth 10 flashlights with dead batteries. Now, let me be honest with you about a thing because I always am.

[00:16:26]In my own community, we do use oil lamps and their like for light, and this simple kind is well within the old plain way of doing things. But I will tell you plainly that practices differ from one Amish community to another, and the stricter orders and the looser ones draw their lines in different places on all manner of things, light included. So I speak for the old plain way as I know it and I tell you this lamp is a true and ancient part of it. But I will not pretend every community does everything just alike because they do not. And I would rather be straight with you than tidy. This is honest old knowledge either way and it belongs to the whole world and not to us alone. For the whole world lit itself this way once and that is really the heart of why I wanted to show you this. This is not really an Amish secret at all. This is how every grandmother of every people on this earth had light after dark back not so very far before the wire came to the houses. A dish, some oil, a bit of cotton, a small flame. It is the common inheritance of the whole human family, and it got set down and forgotten in a single generation when the electric light came. so completely forgotten that folks now think you cannot have light without the power company. And you can.

[00:17:51]You always could. It is sitting in your pantry right now. Now, who profits from you not knowing this? And I will say it careful as always because I am not telling you there is a scheme, some room of men keeping the oil lamp secret from you. It is quieter than that and needs no plotting. When the power goes out, the thing you are nudged toward is to go buy batteries and flashlights and fancy emergency lights and more batteries. All of it costing money and all of it running dead in a drawer when you finally need it. There is no dollar for anybody in you knowing that a jar and the oil already in your kitchen makes a light that burns for hours and never needs a battery. So, the plain old knowing of the oil lamp just quietly stopped being passed down. Not because anyone hid it, but because there was no profit in the telling, and the electric light made everyone forget. Besides, the knowing grew over like a path nobody walks. Well, let us walk it again. Here is what I would ask of you. Do not wait for the power to go out to learn this.

[00:19:03]Tonight at your own kitchen table with the lights on and no emergency, make one. A jar, some water, a little oil floated on top, a cork, and a cotton wick. And light it and watch it burn so that you have done it once with calm hands in good light. Because the time to learn to make a light is not in the dark in a panic. It is now in the quiet. so that when the dark comes, you already know. And then come down to the comments and tell me. Tell me if you made one and how it burned. And tell me if your grandmother or your grandfather had oil lamps and what they were like because a great many of you had these in the family within living memory. And those memories are worth saving. And the next time we sit down together, I am finally truly with absolutely nothing coming before it, paying off the promise I have carried longer than I can believe. There is a reason an old farmhouse holds its heat through a bitter winter night, while the new house next door goes cold before morning. It is not luck. It is not a better furnace. It is built right into the walls and I have walked past it by the light of a lamp my whole life.

[00:20:31]That is the very next video and there will be no more delay of any kind. None.

[00:20:38]You have my word and it is good. So make the lamp with a glass or metal vessel and never plastic. Water in the bottom and oil floated on top. A cotton wick held straight with its tail in the oil and its tip in the air and never touching the water. Keep the flame small and trimmed. Feed it oil to keep it burning and never once leave that flame alone or forget for a moment that it is a fire. The people who built this country with their hands knew that.