Up in smoke

[FireLion]

Let me preface this story by saying that it could have been much worse.
Last week my grandson and I cleaned & rebuilt a 220F lantern. We lit it & it burned well. Well, yesterday, we noticed that it still needed some more cleaning so we took off the top and pulled the globe and managed to break the fragile mantles during cleaning. No big deal, we just finished up and tied on new mantles, burned them, and put the lantern back together.
Now, all this is being done on my workbench in my basement. Well, we pumped it up and lit the match to fire it up. At about the same time as my grandson stuck the match up under the globe, the lantern started shooting liquid fuel out of the mantle ports! Needless to say, the whole thing went up in flames right there on my workbench! My first thought was to pick it up and get it out of my basement. I quickly took it out the door to my driveway, burning my one good hand in the process.
Luckily my grandson grabbed the fire extinguisher and covered the lantern, and my burning arm with powder. Man! What a rush! My burns are very light, though I don't have any hair on my arm anymore.
Question-why would the lantern drip/shoot out fuel like that? Isn't the fuel supposed to vaporize before coming to the mantles?
The lesson that we all learned is to test lanterns and stoves outside!!

P.S., now we have to clean up that lantern all over again!

[madjack]

I am not one of the experts in this field by a long shot but my experience has been this is often caused by too much fuel in tank or too much pressure...by the way, I once had a similar situation while lighting a lantern in a boat...I had the lantern sitting on my leg while lighting and it caught my leg and hands on fire...luckily, the lake was right there and I just dunked everything overboard...ever since, I try to not fill to more than 80% and minimal pressure on lighting...once it is lit and running, I woll do a final pump up on the pressure...I am sure the experts will have better advice to offer.............
madjack

[doug hodder]

Was the valve cracked open the 1/4 turn or less that they recommend? If it is open more than that, the needle starts to rise up in the fuel air pickup and you are dumping raw fuel into the system instead of just the vapors needed to light it. That can cause a major flood situation. On a lantern that I've had apart, I always look for any wet spots prior to lighting it up, when under pressure. Doug