I would have never thought of trying Vaseline! I might just have to make some of these up to keep in the Jeep.
Quote from: derekmac on October 08, 2014, 09:14:39 PMI would have never thought of trying Vaseline! I might just have to make some of these up to keep in the Jeep.do I sense a note of 'sarcasm' ?
Hey TD, next time try wraping them in a bit of tin foil when they cool down. Then rip the foil so there's a small amount of the cotton wool showing and light that. Smaller flame, but much longer burn time. Better for lighting "stubborn" fires, and can double as makeshift candle
I would strongly suggest melting the Vaseline in a bain marie type arrangement, bowl of water and the bowl for melting the Vaseline on top. Also not doing it over a naked flame as the vapor is err flammable
Quote from: Smashie on October 08, 2014, 09:49:03 PMI would strongly suggest melting the Vaseline in a bain marie type arrangement, bowl of water and the bowl for melting the Vaseline on top. Also not doing it over a naked flame as the vapor is err flammableall VERY good advice unfortunately my Mrs is funny about what I do on 'her' stove and not very tolerant of my fire making 'games' in her 'her' kitchen so I have to play in the garden .....(oh and I'm hardcore )
Why did I think that to properly take advantage of this I'd need a table top catapult. DefSent from my smurfing hunk of techno sorcery
candle wax worked quite well in an earlier 'experiment' but I did ruin my scientific 'timings' by getting carried away with the pretty flame I have the attention span of a gold fis............owww a squirrel
There's enough wax in a tea candle to make 4 paraffin soaked cotton balls, and yes, I've done it. After the cotton balls soak up the wax, take them out of the tea candle tin, and put them on a sheet of aluminum foil to dry, or else they'll merge into one massive clump. In all truth, I do this in a steel measuring cup I got expressly for melting wax in.I just spent a bit outside on our deck playing with fire, and...-I was getting 7-8 minute burns from the paraffin soaked cotton balls (all of these times are in light breeze).-I then tried rubbing alcohol. 2 and a half minutes.-Hand sanitizer (I couldn't get much to soak into the cotton ball), 3 minutes. And it smelled like someone lit unicorn farts on fire.(Since I heard of a 'life hack' of putting tortilla chips on a BBQ to get the coals going...)-Paraffin cottonball on a tortilla chip 'scoop'. Didn't increase the time, but it DID increase the size of the flame by about 150%.-Tortilla chip filled with more tortilla chip crumbs, lit with about 1/4 of a paraffin soaked cotton ball. Mmm... didn't work great. 3 minute burn time, LOTS of smoke.-Paraffin soaked cotton ball partially wrapped in tin foil, to control the burn, 12 minutes.And remember kids... try this at home. Just do it responsibly.
have you ever tried ~ warming them up to make them totally fluid (on a hotplate perhaps ) then sticking a cotton ball in the wax. when it dries, still in the foil cup would that work I need to do more playing with fire
Quote from: Taxi Dad on October 10, 2014, 08:17:20 PMhave you ever tried ~ warming them up to make them totally fluid (on a hotplate perhaps ) then sticking a cotton ball in the wax. when it dries, still in the foil cup would that work I need to do more playing with fire If you do that you probably should use two pots to melt the wax. Put some water in the larger pot and then put the smaller pot in that water. That way you limit the temperature in the small pot to around boiling point of the water and prevent the wax from igniting.