Grease Lamps! although they are not made by Jon www.townsends.us/products/redware-grease-lamp-lantern-p4142-p-864

John, you mentioned that they would use waste cooking grease, but I would love to see how to safely use one of these (fuel selection, filling, and lighting.) Great tutorial on a staple home item!

@lynnodonnell4764

2 жыл бұрын

Justin- Count me in also! Wud love to see how to 'replicate' the process. Perhaps, at least, using modern materials for the burning fluids.

@megneticred

2 жыл бұрын

I third! I loved that not only did you explain a vital tool that we are no longer familiar with, but you made one the way they would have! I agree. Id love to see how to safely use it without burning my house down! Loved this.

@moranarevel

2 жыл бұрын

Kitchen grease is easy to render down. I render down all of my grease and oils for reuse.

@lukeb6394

Жыл бұрын

I would really appreciate that video as well!!

@andrewdriver3318

Жыл бұрын

@@lynnodonnell4764 You just fill it with olive oil, conola oil or any cooking oil you find at the grocery and stick a wick in it.

This should be made into a regular series. Even if it's not talking about making stuff on the pottery wheel. You could sit there and make stuff while just talking about random 17th/18th century general life. I'd love to watch a series like that

@suzz1776

2 жыл бұрын

Great idea. I'd love to watch that also!!!

@Noctuloquor

2 жыл бұрын

It actually is a regular series over on Townsends Plus. Seven episodes so far.

@motherwolf8407

2 жыл бұрын

Yes!

@JoeXTheXJuggalo1

2 жыл бұрын

@@Noctuloquor you mean where you have to pay $10 a monthly/$100 yearly for a subscription. That "Townsend Plus"? I was commenting it for here. Not something I have to pay for.

@eagle4570

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, I was just thinking that

A little pottery vocabulary… Scratching the clay where you want to attach another piece is called “scoring”. The clay slime you use to stick pieces together is called “slip”. Another enjoyable Townsends video.

Just when I thought I understood where Townsends as a channel was going after all those years, John starts throwing pottery (at us). I love this.

@Neenerella333

2 жыл бұрын

He made a little beehive clay oven years ago. It's a good one too.

@matthewgalasso1087

2 жыл бұрын

I for one, am here for the chaos. The wholesome wholesome chaos.

@Marlaina

2 жыл бұрын

He had pottery videos from way back. Just not a whole lot.

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

2 жыл бұрын

I appreciate that "throwing pottery" wordplay.

As for candles: most people today think that 'snuffing' a candle means to put it out. Before the mid 19th century, it meant to trim the wick so that it *wouldn't* go out. Pope, in his _Peri Bathous_ , rephrases the command, 'snuff the candle', as: *'Yon luminary amputation needs;* *Thus shall you save its half-extinguished life."* One can find old 'snuffers' still in antique shops, usually resembling a pair of scissors with a little box on one blade: the cone-shaped items we often think of as 'snuffers' were then called 'extinguishers'. There were different degrees of candles as well: the cheapest would be tallow dips; then there would be bayberry and beeswax; the brightest, cleanest, and most expensive would have been of spermaceti. For lamp oils, there was a similar hierarchy: common grease or lard oil; fish oil; various seed oils; and at the top, sea-mammal ('train oil') or whale oil.

@lynnodonnell4764

2 жыл бұрын

Lucias1958 I deeply enjoyed your commentary! And the quote was so interesting. Do you make candles? Are you an reeanctor of a specific time period?

I’m totally transfixed watching Jon throw a little oil lamp. I did take ceramics in college, so knowing the process myself makes a million times more amazing. Mad respect for the amount of dried clay on Jon’s work pants. Seriously, I can totally tell how much time he dedicates to pottery by the dirt on his pants.

I have made an oil lamp from nothing more that a piece of cotton string (shoe lace in my case), a button, and a container to hold the oil (in my case an empty tuna can). Crazy simple. Of course you can make a makeshift candle from crayons and a piece of cotton string. Put the sting in the center of a few crayons, tie the whole bundle together with more string, then light the string. All of these i did as a kid as "fun experiments" from books. And they all work, more or less. The lamps you made were much more efficient and complicated, but still pretty easy to make.

@celticchrys

2 жыл бұрын

In the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, she describes her mother making a button lamp like that.

@lynnodonnell4764

2 жыл бұрын

Jerome- Can vegetable oils be used? Like expired olive oil or canola? Some restaurants in the 70's and 80's were filling wine bottles with an oil ( I think) . Then cotton string steeped in the oil was threaded up through a fired clay bead. (A very lovely touch to an Italian dinner.)

@SilvaDreams

2 жыл бұрын

@@lynnodonnell4764 Yup, olive oil was actually a common lamp fuel because it has a low combustion temperature but stays liquid till fairly low temperatures unlike animal fats. Heck you can make a cheap but stupidly long lasting emergency candle with a can of Crisco (or an off brand) and just shoving as wick(s) down into it. A big can of Crisco can last days. (which if you didn't know Crisco is just a hydrogenated vegetable oil which makes it solid at room temps)

We sure take our modern electric lights for granted. This was a very enjoyable video. Cheers!

@JoeXTheXJuggalo1

2 жыл бұрын

That's why I love watching and learning about things like this. Also watch bushcraft videos as well. Heck I know how to make candle out of a 6lb tub of vegetable shortening that could last months if used properly.

@megneticred

2 жыл бұрын

It was en-light-ening……eeeehhh???!………sorry, i cant help loving a good pun!

@suewilkinson5855

2 ай бұрын

It tickles me to see old movies and TV shows where someone lights one candle and the whole room lights up enough to hurt your eyes.

I did not know the reason for the space between wick and outer edge in betty lamps. That makes perfect sense. Thank you, this was lovely.

Always glad to find you at the potter's wheel. I've never thought how common or how far back the potters use of the extruded form might go. Thanks for always giving us so much to think on.

Lovely video! I'd love to see more videos of you throwing!

@darcksage1

2 жыл бұрын

Knew I'd find you here! Hope you have a nice day Florian!

Jon: "You have to be very careful with these open vessels so they don't spill their oil." Also Jon: 4:50 D:

@rubenskiii

2 жыл бұрын

I see it now. 😂

Functional art is really interesting, I’ve always been drawn to the Japanese stuff but some of the early American pieces are really nice too.

@lynnodonnell4764

2 жыл бұрын

Tech w Sean- As a young girl I saw a beautiful beaver coat w a BEAUTIFUL lining- I was very intrigued. Then as a young woman I saw an armoir with a BEAUTIFUL crafted interior. Hummm- 2 items w hidden aesthetics... Going to college to get my BA in ART there was often discussions concerning: IS IT ART OR CRAFT ? CAN FUNCTION ALSO EXHIBIT BEAUTY? Can FUCTION also have FORM?. My mom was close friends with Georgia Wallers whose husband wrote the book 'Bridges of Madison County' turned famous movie starring Clint Eastwood & Meryl Streep. Okay, Georgia was also a potter. Here's where I'm going w this... I have a Georgia Wallers pitcher sitting out for DISPLAY in house w other college roommates. I'd come home and find the GW Pitcher in the kitchen cupboard. I'd put it out for display. This kept up for some time. " Okay, I asked my roommates in frustration, " Who keeps putting my pitcher away"? " Why is it sitting out anyway when it's not in the fridge"? one said in her defense. " Because not only is it FUNCTIONAL it is also ART " I replied. "That's ART???" qiured my roommates. "But you put it in the fridge w water in it. ART is something you look at, not a kitchen item." The whole Form&Function concept was lost on them. This was way back in the 70's. To 'Keep the Peace' I kept it out of view when not in use.

Heck, i have oil lamps in my house right now. Storms are a thing, and loss of power sucks if all you have are electric lights. I also have a coleman gas lamp, because those are SO much better than oil lamps, but less safe indoors. You can make a huge oil lamp using a crisco can and the oil in it. Dangerous, but if you need it, you need it.

Very similar to oil lamps from Ancient Rome. Clearly it was an effective technology!

@mcreaper5158

2 жыл бұрын

@Luke Genness I’ve got one on my shelf just in case!

@Marlaina

2 жыл бұрын

My mother in law has oil lamps all over her house since we live in a hurricane impact area. She gave some to her kids for emergencies so I have them in various rooms of my house as well.

@bunnyslippers191

2 жыл бұрын

@@Marlaina I have some of those, too. I live in a thunderstorm/tornado prone area and we have at least one power outage every year and sometimes more than one. We had one just 4 days ago. All we got where I live was a dust storm that knocked down some tree limbs that hit some power lines, but there was a tornado about 25 miles Southeast of here and a really bad one 90 miles to the South. The power was back on by 9 pm, so it was still light outside, so the oil lamps weren't needed, but if the outage had lasted longer I would have lit them.

John Townsend is a cool dude

What a wonderful and informative demonstration. I must say, I throughly enjoyed this particular episode. And look forward to seeing more!

just what I'm looking for, relaxing history storytelling to calm my anxiety at 4 a.m.

If they didn't regularly clean, their rooms would get a fine layer of oil on everything after enough time.

@Neenerella333

2 жыл бұрын

It probably did have a layer of oil on everyone's homes. Just look at any homes in the last 100 years where people smoked. They get used to a level of grime. They don't even notice it.

@machintelligence

2 жыл бұрын

Lots of soot as well, even if you used candles. It is the glowing carbon particles that provide the light.

@volvo09

2 жыл бұрын

@@machintelligence yeah if you burn a LOT of candles you can get a soot buildup. The last house I lived in, we moved in when it was 13 years old and it was all original paint. The prior family had floorstanding candle holders in many locations around the living room. You could see soot circles on the ceiling and "shadows" running up the walls where the candles were.

I'm a potter and I'm absolutely going to try throwing some of these. Thanks for the inspiration!!!

Demonstrating once again that there isn't much that Jon can't do. Well-done!

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

2 жыл бұрын

He could get thrown in the 18th century and he'd fend just fine.

@JimHawking-

2 жыл бұрын

Had to be more self sufficient back in the day

Love these Jon! Can you make a video about making your potters wheel?

Excellent videography guys. The lighting and the camera angles on the wheel were really nice. I really respect Jon's versatility. Lots of talent, but practical. And humble! Well done!

People love modern wicks so much they keep adding extra ones.

@MzladyGrinn

2 жыл бұрын

I have always found that quite bizarre.

I would love to see how you made the pottery wheel, that wheel is spinning really smoothly and I don't know what sort of bearings they would have been able to make to allow it to spin with so little resistance.

@SpeakShibboleth

2 жыл бұрын

Greased bearings made from impregnated hardwoods are pretty good. Not are good as hardened steel balls but plenty good enough for that application. They're high maintenance in comparison though.

I absolutely love what you're doing. I'm about to start a personal notebook on your old recipes and cool tidbits of knowledge and advice.

This was fantastic, please do more pottery work, fascinating stuff!

What a wonderful discovery! Your channel turned up when I was looking around for ancient oil lamps, and how they were made. I wanted to make one and didn't know how to go about it. Now I do, and will! I look forward to hours and hours of watching all the episodes you offer. Great stuff! Thank your for your time and effort in producing this fascinating content.

i sure do hope ya keep making more for this series, this is a lot of fun to watch and learn from

John you need to take off your wedding band when throwing clay. The clay is abrasive and you are thinning the band. Thanks for the videos. I enjoy watching.

Thank you Jon that was very interesting to watch. A lot of information I had not given much thought to.

Like a few of the other people have mentioned, I'd like to see a more in depth video showing more of the finishing touches and details, such as the firing and glazing methods used to seal the clay after it's been fired. Thank you for another good video.

Fun as well as interesting to watch….would love to see more like this! Thanks

Absolutely wonderful. I watched it as I was going to sleep and missed the end so watched it again when I woke up. Great job. I’d love to see how they would have glazed and fired something like this back then without our modern kilns and commercial glazes. You did a video about salt glaze a long time ago but it was more of a this method existed than a here’s how they did it step by step. Really hope you turn this into a series. It was such a calming and peaceful way to learn about something! Oh, I was also really surprised by how long the wheel kept turning once you got it going! I had been imagining that you’d have to be kicking at a wheel like that almost constantly and couldn’t figure out how you’d manage to turn something intricate with the movement of your leg making your arms and hands move too. So that was fascinating. Would love to see how to build one at some point too. That would be really interesting.

Really enjoyed this video watching you make pottery. Thanks! 👍👍

Great job Jon, very good class on pottery . Thanks for sharing with us. Fred.

Great to see that you’re also a potter. Love see more pottery making on the channel.

Loved this tutorial Jon! Thank you 😊

Wow! That extrusion tool way back in time really surprised me! I love how I learn so much from this channel 😃

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

2 жыл бұрын

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

Amazing 1,100 likes in a few hours. And almost 10 000 views. I love this channel. Nothing could be better than a relaxing, educational program. Thank you.

Must've just shaved Jon got that Babyface

Hello from Detroit Michigan brother thank you for what you do and your knowledge and expertise and for taking us on your adventure through time 👋

We just bought some! They are awesome and I highly recommend them.

This was just great, thanks Townsend's...

Please do more of this series!!!

I was just playing a game called Kingdom Come Deliverance and loved the oil lamps on the table. Long story short I couldn’t wait to make one at some point. Now today not even 12 hours later my favorite revolutionary homesteader is giving me a great tutorial. I’ll be going on a new rabbit hole dive of your videos. Thank you for all you do! Love from Alaska ❤ what an interesting world

And great topic, I use a"whale"oil lantern at the 1812

Absolutely fascinating !

Heck yeah ! Was just looking at the channel to see if anything was posted !

I feel like this is going back to the channels "roots", but we get a longer video and no sales pitch 😁. Honestly, back then, I didn't mind the sales pitch because the videos are always informative. Great video.

@PlayaSinNombre

2 жыл бұрын

Umm... they sell the oil lamps, tho.

@generalrubbish9513

2 жыл бұрын

Honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with a little self-advertisement in one's content as long as it isn't obnoxious and doesn't detract from the experience. You gotta keep in mind that selling these products is pretty much Townsends' main source of revenue, providing them with the budget to make all these cool videos.

I'm glad you made one these I experimented a couple years ago with an improvised one. It didn't turn out so well.

Great video! Informative, interesting, and engaging. Thanks 🙏

Just Brilliant. 👍 TFS, & take care too everyone. ❤🙂🐶

That was a LOT more interesting than I thought it was going to be! Thanks Jon!

What an interesting topic! Another would be how the potters wheel is constructed.

Great video and very informative 👍 👏

Lighting is such a simple things in this day and age that we take it for granted. Excellent video, very eye opening.

Holy cow that was some awesome set lighting

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

2 жыл бұрын

Really fit with the subject of the video.

Beautiful thanks!

Good go old man...at 64 years 11 months with over 35 years of potting, I feel you did okay for the time period. Talking and throwing is a special skill. Hats off to you.

Really cool, Jon!

Really cool, thanks.

Very relaxing!

Back in art class, our teacher taught us how to pull handles. I found a way to pull tubing, since I wanted a hollow handle in my bottle, a Klein bottle. So what I did was I kept rotating a hollowed out cone of clay, and started pulling it as you would a handle, but I rotated it slightly to keep its circular shape. To keep the inside from crinkling, I had to go really slowly, smoothing out the inside whenever possible. I somehow made it work. It was pretty cool.

This channel = tranquility.

Jon, I'd like to see how that extruder is made, how it works. Damned clever device.

Thanks for this Jon! I'd really be curious to see the glazing and firing processes one day!

Yes! I love this series :)

I read about the native coastal tribes, that Lewis & Clark interacted with, using a certain kind of oily fish called candlefish (eulachon) as a lamp. I can see the benefit of oil or oil-imbedded items as a light source alternative to candles. Gotta wonder about the smell though

@SharonAnnMenefee

2 жыл бұрын

The Greenlanders and Icelandic folks burned whale & seal oil. Quite a stink in their turf longhouses.

I love those ye olde vice grips on the clay extruder! 😁

I'd love to learn more about this! How do you glaze it? What kiln do you use verses why kind they used back then as well please!

Can you do videos about all the tools and materials you would need for this, and one about firing the pieces?

Is there anything you can’t do, Townsend?? Great work!

@7:26 I half expected to hear Unchained Melody playing in the background!! 😁

@Pygar2

2 жыл бұрын

The definitive Bluebottle cover?

Very nice video. What sort of bearing does the kick wheel use?

as a potter myself its fun to see a new shape for use ill be making some of them :)

Very nice. In seeing the down view at 22:15 I would have put 3 or maybe 4 tubes on that to give it the option to light more than one wick creating more light.

@Muljinn

2 жыл бұрын

With the size of vessel, that might not work. There’s a distinct potential of flame instability from insufficient oxygen if the wicks are too close together.

Great episode John! Pottery and glass blowing have always been interests of mine, ever since I lived near Jamestown as a kid. I hope we'll see more episodes like this in the future! A small nitpick - it was a bit hard to understand at times through the video, like the microphone wasn't quite catching everything.

With that hole in the bottom you could put a peg on a board mounted to a wall and to be able to keep it from being knocked of the wall that the lamp will sit down on.

That's mesmerizing

As a ceramicist this is fantastic, very educational

Get some of those dollar solar lawn lights. That's what Styxx used then he had an extended power outage. Having something like this would be a great backup, but having a lightsource that requires no additional inputs other than being left outside during the day can be a lifesaver.

I light all my camping with oil lamps, and hadn't;t thought about recycling oil! Now I am off to start planning to render out the chunks!

I'm impressed! I did take a few throwing and clay classes in college - to balance the necessary brainy nonsense courses 😁

more clay work please

Is there a video going over different earthenware used in the time period? I'm personally interested in special use items like fermentation crocks

What would the wick typically be made of at that time? You mention using leftover fabric but I’ve heard that fabric was considered by some to be kind of valuable? Would/could they use rougher plant materials like if you were to make cordage out of dry grasses? Or is that too rough/not good for wicking up the fuel?

How long have you been turning pottery? A pleasant surprise!

I so badly want to sit down on a stool next to him as he shows this, and kick the wheel for him. Brings back manual woodworking and pottery work memories with my grandfather

One of my passions in the hobby is early lighting. I have one of your pan lamps I got when you first introduced them. I had both the short one (like in this video) and a tall one that you don't offer any more. Unfortunately I broke the taller one. I also have the iron betty, tin bettys, iron phoebe lamp and hand-forged crusies. One thing I have had difficulty with the tube style shown here is using solid fat (like meat drippings) for fuel. The tube is too long to get hot enough to melt the fat in the pan so that the liquid is drawn up the wick. Was this style meant for burning whale oil, and other liquid oils like olive oil?

@Lucius1958

2 жыл бұрын

Whale oil, and various vegetable oils, like rapeseed (I believe it's called 'canola' now) and olive (which would probably have been uncommon outside of Mediterranean countries), tended to be rather expensive. Common folks would probably have had to use cooking grease, or perhaps fish oil if they lived near the shore. I have read of early 19th century 'lard oil' lamps, which used a metal strip, heated by the flame, to keep the fuel in a liquid state: I'm not sure how they managed before that, but people had used grease lamps since the Stone Age onwards...

@buttonvalley

2 жыл бұрын

@@Lucius1958 My specific question was about the tube that Townsend's uses in it's pan lamps. I have been collecting and studying period lighting for many years, but the Townsend's are the only ones I have personally seen like that. he Olive oil was fairly common in 18th century America. It was called sweet oil for most purposes. It wasn't cheap enough to be a regular fuel for lamps, but I'm sure it was used in a pinch. You are correct that animal fats were the most common fuel for grease lamps. Crusies and phoebe lamps just had the wick laying in a narrowed end of the pan. Most pottery pan lamps were the same, looking like the first one Jon showed, with what looked like a pour spout. Betty lamps use a tube or ramp to elevate the wick in a position that allows the excess liquid fuel to drip back into the pan. But to work, the flaming wick needs to melt enough of the animal fat to be drawn up the wick to maintain the flame. The tubes on Townsend's lamps do not conduct enough heat to keep the fat melted and drawing up the wick.

I remember when I was a kid my grandma had a class measuring cup she collected grease in. One day, the power went out, and she pulled out some lamp wick and shoved it in the grease, laying it across the spout and lit it, making herself a lamp for the kitchen.

Such a fun project. I have no access to a wheel, sadly. I wonder if something similar could be made out of epoxy clay. 🤔

Great looking ❤️

With Things going the way they have been we all might need to learn this skill. Seriously.

Do you know of a good place to buy a foot powered potter’s wheel? A quick search online and I’m finding mostly electric ones. There are a couple of manual ones that are really expensive ($1,500+). I was hoping to find a cheaper, beginners model somewhere.

Jon on the wheel are possibly my 2nd favorite of the Townsends videos. (Have to put the old cookie videos with Ivy 1st)

what did the homestead use for a glaze or did they just not have glazed homemade pottery

Do you have a video on how you made the pottery wheel?

Dear Mr. Townsends, my family love your videos. However my dad is not interested in cooking or history. Strangely, he REALLY likes pottery and the thrill of the potters wheel. I really appreciate you making a pottery video because it's one of the few videos my dad will watch with the family and kids