I'm really happy with the quality vs. value of these lanterns. They have a couple of minor issues but all in all I ended up with some really nice functional lanterns for less than ten bucks each and that's pretty hard to beat. I ordered four total lanterns and was happy that they all arrived intact with no dents or shipping related injuries. They were well packaged, each in an individual box with bubble wrap and air pillows and then those individual boxes in a larger box with air pillows.
The overall build quality is fairly poor, as you'd expect for a product of this price point. The metal is thin, the quality of the paint and application of it are pretty poor. They painted the whole wick burner mechanism which I found kind of odd… most lanterns I've seen leave that unpainted but it didn't seem to hurt anything when I used them. But all in all the ones I got would be perfectly functional right out of the box even though I chose to make minor modifications.
I took each one apart, removing the globe and wick mechanism, and filled them about half full to let them set a day and check for leaks of the fount (reservoir). None of the 4 lanterns I received leaked at the bottom seams, as it seems many people have issues with in their reviews. Given that it seems to be a common problem though, after the day of leak testing I drained mine cleaned them out with acetone, and lined the tanks of each of mine with paint. I happened to have some special paint (Masterseries silver primer actually) used for the purpose of lining gas tanks left over from restoring an old VW Beetle tank (a hobby of mine). Yeah, that's kind of a drag to feel motivated to "fix" a brand new product but again for as cheap as they are I didn't mind lining the tanks with some leftover tank liner that I didn't really have earmarked for anything else just to make sure I didn't ever have to worry about the seams leaking. I also decided to attach the filler cap to the lantern using some light weight decorative chain… because otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd set it down while filling it up and never see the thing again!
After giving that a couple of days to fully cure I filled them up… a tip here is that mine seemed to hold about 1 cup of oil (kero) at the fill line so I measured 6 ounces, about 3/4 cup, to fill them so I knew I wasn't too close to the totally full point. I let them set for a couple hours as I did other stuff to let the wick soak up, and then came back and lit them up. They worked fine. I burned them for several hours in my garage and they didn't really give off a significant smell even burning normal kerosene. With the wick adjusted properly they didn't soot the globes and they just did what they are supposed to do. I think I'll get one of those liquor or olive oil bottles with the little pouring spout to keep around for refilling them.
The light output is not big. Light output seems to be most dependent on wick size. These have about a 1/2 wide wick which means around 5-7 "candlepower" at most, which is basically lumens. Normal household bulbs are usually measured in at least hundreds of lumens so we're not talking about a lot of light here as compared to normal lighting. It's enough to keep from stumbling around over stuff but I wouldn't really want to read a book by it. That's what I got them for though so it's fine for my purposes. I figure I'll use them for general "not bumping into stuff" lighting during any extended power outage and camping and then only fire up the pressurized (Coleman) lanterns or battery powered stuff if I'm actually doing something that warrants that much light.
I'm trying to prepare for an extended power outage of a minimum of 2 weeks. I also have some candles, battery powered LED, and propane lanterns and lighting but redundancy is wise when preparing for emergencies (two is one and one is none is a common saying in that context). Kerosene is my fuel of choice for this because it's inexpensive, easy to get, and stores well. These things were a small investment in money and time and now that I know they work and are ready if I ever need them they can just set out in the shed out of the way and out of mind until the power goes out or I want to bring them camping or something.
There are no reviews yet.