Coleman pics for Suprz
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aussiedog3
Feeling the Heat
suprz
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The older mantles were coated with a slightly radioactive substance that makes them glow when lit, nowadays they use a more politically correct coating and alot of us that collect lanterns will swear that the new mantles do not burn as bright or last as long...but even with the new coating, DO NOT breathe in the fumes when you light a new mantle and get it ready to light for the first time...
I used to do Radiation Safety at several universities before I retired. One of the items I would always use to teach folks about background radiation, and give some common examples of consumer items that contain radioactive materials, was the older lantern mantles. They contained an radioisotope of Thorium in them, not enough to harm you from a distance, but I wouldn't want to breath in a wad of old mantle dust. A package of them could peg a geiger counter pretty good. Used to also use an americium element from a common ionization chamber smoke detector. But the best of all was my big orange-red glazed Fiesta Ware Turkey Platter. That baby was so "hot" that I joked that you could probably cook a Turkey on it! (not really)
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