great balls of fire

[Taxi Dad]

this may be in the wrong section but I've been playing with some cotton balls and various flammable liquids today.
there wasn't much on TV and I was bored 

I know this has been done to near death on many 'forums' on the web, but I've not seen it done quite like this,  ....I don't think  so I thought I'd share. I haven't achieved much with my day 

heat up Vaseline, I did it in an old tin can over a camping stove, till it becomes a liquid. Then just drop in a cotton ball. fish it out with a long pair or tweezers (a couple of sticks would do) leave to cool.
thing is I found the cotton ball soaked up loads and when set alight they burned for significantly longer than my 'standard' VcCB's  aprox. 12 minute burn time on my first tests (just popped in another spare old tin can and hit with a spark~ today was pretty windy FYI)
also less messy than other methods I've tried

tomorrow I shall have another play, hopefully

*I would imagine this to be fairly dangerous. Although I suffered no injury I'm NOT suggesting it's SAFE IN ANY WAY and accept no responsibility for any damage you do to yourself or others (inc property)! I would recommend good ventilation if you attempt this stupidity.

[derekmac]

I would have never thought of trying Vaseline!  I might just have to make some of these up to keep in the Jeep.

[Taxi Dad]

I 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' ?
 

[AimlessWanderer]

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

[derekmac]

I 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' ?
 

Honestly, no!  I'm thinking this could be a great idea.  It would take up less room then keeping paper, and would probably work better at starting a fire, especially if the wood isn't super dry.

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

[Taxi Dad]

thanks Al. I like the 'foil' idea. I've not tried that (yet  tomorrow another day)
I have some of those little 'ziplock' baggies (the ones sold for young people to keep their 'herbs' in ) and find you can get a VasBall in one nicely. they can then be stored/handled without them getting too messy.

[Taxi Dad]

@ Derek ~ I thought everyone knew about Vaseline balls   
I'm chuffed if I've actually passed on some useful info

[Megan]

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

That's an excellent tip. I hadn't thought of that at all.

[Smashie]

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

[Taxi Dad]

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

all 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  )

[Smashie]

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

all 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  )

Have a look for a single ring electric hob, they're about a score, oh and setting fire to yourself is not hardcore 

[ducttapetech]

If you get a chance, try heating up some pine sap. Get it to a liquid then dip most of the cotton ball in the pine pitch then let cool. It will burn really hot and for a long time.

Nate

[Taxi Dad]

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 

[Spork, Lord of Lime Jello!]

I prefer to do it by solar power...swipe the ball in PJ and toss into a Ziploc bag...put it out in the sun. It's a lot less messy that way.

If you do melt the PJ, you can all some wax to it and make a paste. It comes out similar to Spark-Lite tabs...also less messy.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Why did I think that to properly take advantage of this I'd need a table top catapult. 

Def

Sent from my smurfing hunk of techno sorcery

[enki_ck]

Why did I think that to properly take advantage of this I'd need a table top catapult. 

Def

Sent from my smurfing hunk of techno sorcery

Glorious results of a misspent youth.

[Lynn LeFey]

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 

I prefer paraffin wax to Vasoline. I melt the wax, then dip cotton balls about 2/3 of the way into the wax. They burn a LONG time, but i haven't timed it. I leave a little undipped so they catch spark or flame better.

I also find them a LOT less messy than vasoline, and i think that's a big thing.

You can get tea candles at like 100 for $1 or something absurd. Or you can find block paraffin in the cooking section of most grocery stores. Or just use old candles.

[Taxi Dad]

thanks for the 'input' Lynn
I like tealight candles and see them as a very useful item, and keep them all over the place. pretty good as they are.
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 

[Lynn LeFey]

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.

[derekmac]

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.

   

[Megan]

I spit out some coffee on that one.

I'm going to try the tea light one on the weekend.

[Taxi Dad]

on the subject of fire and survivally stuff, peanuts are great to have in a pack as emergency food, but they burn for bloody ages (the oil in them I believe)

[Lynn LeFey]

It's the same idea with corn chips. They're cooked in corn oil, soaked in the stuff. For convenience in carry, the peanuts have it hands down, and I THINK they have about the highest calories per weight of any food i can find (peanut butter certainly wins here).

Oh, I forgot to mention the cottonball soaked in Olive oil (1 teaspoon). 8 minutes, but a fair amount of smoke, although it didn't smell bad.

Glad the unicorn farts comment was appreciates.

[AimlessWanderer]

Yeah, corn snacks are great fire lighters. Oven dried with added fuel (oil) and cheaper than any commercial firelighter  Peanuts are good and do have good calorific value for eating and burning, but I found (way back when I was at school) that they are a chuff to set light to. We had an experiment to go at school to measure calories contained, and I can remember setting light to one with a bunsen burner ... but unfortunately a bunsen burner is not something most people have access to in survival situations 

The hand sanitiser suggestion was more for when you don't have PJ and cotton balls to hand. It's also good for when you are trying to get a bit of tinder to catch a spark. A small blog of alcohol gel will help imensely. As for unicorn farts they must be hard to harvest, though having physically seen a cow fart on a very cold autumn morning (the ones where smokers pass out through over exhalation because they still think they're exhaling smoke), if you could harvest one of those buggers, I reckon they'd burn way longer and hotter than any treated cotton wool ball. I was in absolute awe of the amount of fartage that was visibly puthering out of the bovine brown eye looking my way. The condensating cloud eminating from her southern corridor must have lasted for a good 6 or 7 seconds. I was very glad that me and my lit cigarette were a good 20ft away otherwise I don't think I'd have had long hair anymore

[ducttapetech]

Has anyone try pine pitch soaked cotton balls yet?

Nate

[AimlessWanderer]

No  I bet they spit a bit don't they?

[lister]

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 

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.

[Taxi Dad]

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 

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.

very sensible advice 
and I would agree with using a 'double boiler'  type arrangement but I was thinking the 'tealights' come in a little pot. probably need to scrape out some wax to make room for the cotton ball