Tubular wick

I'm part of a bungee display team and am thinking of making a ring of fire to jump through.

It'l be a metal frame, made up of a few sections that'll be detatchable from each other. At the moment i'm thinking of just having each section covered in 50mm wide, 1.5mm thick kevlar tubular wick that i can slide on and off so it's easier to soak in fuel.

Now obviously i'm gonna want it to look fairly dangerous, so i'll need a fair size flame, the burn time probably only needs to be about 2-3 minutes though.
does anyone have any idea what sort of flame height i'm likely to get off the wick (with the tubing horizontal)? or how long it'll burn for?

If i wanted to soak up more fuel do you think it would be ok having cotton between the frame and the kevlar, or would it just burn away?

Thanks in advance,
Andy

The tubular wick will probably work, but I'd suggest getting a small fuel container with a small spout so that you could pour the fuel onto the wick instead of trying to thread a soaked wick. Test the burn time before you use it.

You can use cotton but it will eventually burn away.

What the heck are you doing again?? When you say Bungie I'm thinking bungie jumping. If your bungie jumping through a horizontal hoop of fire your taking a serous risk. Bungie cords are not flame proof and neither is your face if you miss the hoop.

Ya I hope you dont plan on bungie jumping through a hoop, thats just asking to be hurt to matter how you do it.

And if you only want a 2-3 minute burn time I would not suggest cotton in between the frame and the kevlar.

bad bad bad idea.

explain HOW you are going to be jumping through this fire hoop without having the bungeecord go through it as well?

I dunno. If the hoop is really big, and everyone watches from the side it will look like you are just missing the fire, but you will be clear from it.

now i'm no physicist or mathematician, but i'm fairly sure when you bungee you jump forward off the platform, when you move down you'd eventually swing back and there would probably be a fair amount of movement in the cord. a slight gust of wind could blow the flames closer to the cord and hey presto, you're now skydiving without a parachute.

bad bad BAD idea.

bad Idea
and i am a physicist/mathematician albeit not a very good one but it's still a VERY bad idea

If you insist of a bungee burn i suggest twirlling a staff that you have gaffa taped to your hand, keep your flames small and protect as much of your end of the bungee cord as possible with a fire proof sheath of some sort mabey leather would work.

But i still wouldn't advise it.

yeah, maybe consider jumping into a pool (not from kerosene)...

bungee burn..

hey! Base (jump) burning... xcuse - couldn't resist.

If you still consider doing it, please let us know time and date, so we can send a prayer for you.

We now have a full nomex body suit, gloves and mask so getting burnt shoudn't be a problem, especially as if something did go wrong you'd only be in contact with the flame for a matter of seconds.

We've had jumps before where the rope has been surrounded by large maroon pyrotechnic explosions and hasn't even shown slight signs of damage.

Also it'd be done feet first because it's a lot more accurate, you just jump straight down then come straight back up as there's very little arc when you're falling.

There's a video here of one of our jumpers at the Lambourne open day this year, doing the first ever jump of its kind (as far as we're aware).
However as you can see, the ring wasn't the most elegant structure, it was made from bamboo and bedsheets. But now we know the jump can be done successfully we want a more permanent structure that we can set up quickly and use over again.

pyrotechnic explosions aren't long lasting flames.
kevlar wicking tends to massively increase the size of the flames when the equipment is stationary. whether the bungee person is burnt or not, aren't we considering that the integrity of the bungee cord? even if it's slightly damaged, does this vital part of your equipment have to be kept pristine for insurance/non-killing-people-in-the-head purposes?

I applaud your efforts in pushing the envelope and am sure that you wouldn't have lasted so long in the bungee industry without a healthy safeety rigour and sterling safety record

b