Both of my bros live and work in AK…both of them work occasionally in the high arctic, one at military/govt facilities, one at a native village, where he has been served whale ‘treats’, as an honor for his work with the town govt offices. Though he said he has never had the pleasure of being around a butcher site. That would be something. I guess Sperm oil is still prized in some quarters as the best product for certain high end applications, despite all the other new tech products.
My father used sperm whale oil to lubricate his electric shaver (before he grew a beard).
There is also a denser easily solidifying component in the sperm whale’s head, used in the resonator of its echo location system and in cosmetics.
I wonder if anyone ran these whale oils through a GCMS and figured out the chemical content (it may be reproducible synthetically)
FWIW, as I’ve had a few gallons of it sitting around for years, I put some liquid paraffin in a kerosene lantern the other night to see what would happen. It seemed to wick with no problem. I did notice if I turned the wick up to get a higher flame, it would burn the wick down again to a smaller size quite quickly. I wondered if the wick cannot stand the higher temperature and that’s why it burns down so quickly?
Curious, I Googled the flash point of the oils:
Kerosene apparently is 38-72C
Paraffin is around 160C
Whale Oil is 230C
That makes me wonder if liquid paraffin would be closer than kerosene in a Whale Oil lamp?
I made an account just to explain that spermacetti and liquified whale blubber weren't the same thing, but Richwouldnt beat me to it long ago.
Whale oil lamps were probably closer to olive oil lamps in design than to volitile oils like kerosene. I would go with a refined olive oil, but know that most vegetable oils will clog a wick, and so you just need to trim or replace the wick periodically. If you're using 100% cotton mop string as wick it's so cheap you won't mind.
Thank you for taking the time for your post!
I once made the mistake to use vegetable oil in my kerosine lamp, it lasted a few hours and then indeed the wick was clogged, and it took another few years before the rancid smell was gone.
Welcome to BLF keyosuke, we also talk about (and spend our incomes on) led flashlights, if that may interest you :innocent: .
I got a kick out of reading about someone doing that. I'd have tried it but I had a kerosene lamp collector advise me against it when I was a kid. I'll have to check out the flashlight threads when the time comes.
Lard is cheap. Not sure how well it resists turning rancid, but there doesn’t seem to be much else in it to go bad.
Clear mineral oil(the food grade stuff) is about as pure and clean as you can get - all the volatiles and other nasties are already distilled off,