The results of my blast from the past.

[GreyNurse]

Earlier this month I unearthed my old peacock pocket warmer. If any of you are familiar with these and their Chinese knock offs, you will know that they work by catalytic heat exchange. For those of you who are not, but are interested, this is brought about by a filling the unit with lighter fluid. The unit is packed with cotton wool type batting which becomes obviously saturated when the unit is filled. Then holding a flame to a glass fibre pad resting in a platinum housing (the burner unit). After a few seconds the process begins, the pad glows a dull red, the housing starts to heat up and the lid goes on. The pocket warmer then heats up completely and is placed in a velveteen bag. It then goes into the pocket or wherever and lasts for hours.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to get mine going, I sent away for a new burner unit as these can often cease to work as much from inactivity as they can from normal usage. The new unit arrived and I was pleased to find that I had been correct. Now one of the recommendations about these pocket warmers is to use the correct fuel. Lighter fluid such a Zippo and Ronsonol (sorry to name brands but it is important in the context of what I'm explaining) are instructed to be used. But I remember years ago when I first bought the thing that White Spirit and Dry Cleaning Fluid was mentioned as being safe to use. There are volatiles that are a definite no-no because they have a tendency to bring about an early demise to the glass fibre pad. So too will soaking the pad in any fluid or handing the pad with dirty fingers. Today's burners are supposed to be good for 5,000 hours

So I decided to conduct a little experiment with lighter fluid and three other combustible fluids commonly found in the household, mineral turps, methylated spirit and kerosene.

What I was looking for was how long a full filling would last and how warm the unit gets. Now my warmer is the large size. They come with a nifty filling cup. It takes five of these cups to fill the unit. It is advertised to last 30 hours on one filling. The standard running temp is stated as 70 degrees C, but it does not say whether that is measured through the bag or directly from the metal body. So here are the results.

Lighter Fluid - 34 hrs - 50 degrees C, the limit of my thermometer.

Mineral Turps - 50hrs - ditto

Meth Spirit - 24 hrs - ditto for temp, but the smell from the fumes I do not recommend

Kerosene - 24 hrs - 40 degrees C.

I later found that kero is not recommended as it is to "heavy" a distillate and can cause the burner element to have a decreased life span. Not surprised. Also, because of the shorter burn time, I felt I had to remove the wool batting from the unit and dry it thoroughly, before using the unit again.

So the verdict?

Obviously lighter fluid as recommended. It lasted a little longer than the 30 hrs, which was good, and the unit reached a very good temperature.

I was stunned by how long the Turps lasted, It ran the unit every bit a warm as the lighter fluid. Neither were too "fumey", but it depends on how sensitive your sense of smell is, I suppose.

The Meth, while running the unit nice and hot actually gave me a headache after I had the unit in my shirt pocket for 15 minutes indoors, and it stinks. I wound up letting it do it's thing in the garage. Wouldn't surprise me to find a few dead insects in there. It also only lasted just on 24 hrs.

Kero can damage the burner unit and it only just gets warm. No good on those icy nights. And a run time of 24hrss was disappointing, as well.

I wouldn't recommend the last two at all.

One last thing. I've ordered another pocket warmer because it's impractical to just have one unit. I don't know about you, but when I'm out and about in the cold, I like to keep both hands warm,

[ambrose607]

Just remember to take it when you go to the hair tail social LOL