>I was messing around with an Adlake kerosene lantern, and I was curious about how I might pass signals with it, as the bail is fastened to the body in the same manner as a bucket. That is, the handle is quite loose and lays down when set aside, and the body flops around when it is swung in an erratic manner, completely unlike my battery powered lantern. The battery powered lantern is very easy to use when passing signals due to it's handle (bail) being rigid or positionable.
If it's a real hayburner, then you can adjust the handle so it's rigid. The top left three in this link have the adjustable handle:
rr lanterns