Hello All !
I've had an old Hipolito for some time and I just got around to "restoring" it.
I bought a load of spares from Britelyt - which seems to be our only source for spares here in the states.
Everything went very well. and the lantern now shines very - very brightly.
Here's my problem.
I also purchased 5 new mantles from them.
At initial fire up - I burned my mantle properly (I have several Colemans as well - so I know how to properly burn down a mantle) - and preheated the vaporiser with two cups of alcohol. I "gradually" opened the knob - so as not to send too much pressure right away into the nozzle etc.
As stated - the lantern shone very brightly - but.....the mantle also had several "blowouts" - inspection of the flame with a pair of welding goggles shown several small holes already in the mantle.
I shut the lantern down and came back in a few hours and replaced the mantle - burned down a new one and went through the whole process again.
.........more holes in the second mantle........
Am I doing something wrong ?
Is there a more robust mantle out there ?
I had read about using the Colman #11 mantles as they were a very tough mantle - any validity to that ?
Thansk !!
Dan