Different types of kevlar wick

i'm currently working on making my first wicked staff, and ran into a query of construction:

why does everyone seem to use flat wicking as opposed to rope wick?

also...what is preferred: single wick per end, or multiple wicks on each end of the staff?

thanks for the help...the combo of the ppl and the info here is wonderful.

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"life begins between the night and the light."

hmmm... well i'll try to answer your questiona as best as i can given that i don't use staff but i've experimented with building other fire toys. as far as the one wick vs. multiple wick it is all a matter of preference. with one wick, or multiple wicks places right next to each other, your flame would look like a thick band of fire. thats definatly nice but sometimes you might prefer having a series of smaller wicks that are placed farther apart so that you get the multiple rings of fire look. as far a rope vs. tape it might be a combination of ease of availability (tape being more common) and clear construction steps that you can follow. the only reason why tape wick might be preferred to rope can be based on how tightly you can bind it to your staff and it might have something to do with the tightness of the tape weave vs. rope weave and how that impacts fuel absorbtion and retention.

Teine--

I've built a few staves. I'll take a shot at this.

Tape wicking seems easier to anchor in place than rope wicking. Which is not to say that it's easy, but you can run a few screws through it and you're done. With rope wicking, I think you'd need something more complex. But it's an interesting idea, and maybe worth a try. One might get more surface area with rope, and that might give a better burn. Hmm, wheels are turning in my head...

I've built staves with two and even three narrow rings of wicking spaced out near the ends, and others where there was a one fat ring of wicking right at the end. I'd start off with a single ring of 3" or 4" wicking at the end. If you decide you need more, you can add more.

if you're going for rope i imagine that a staple gun could come in handy.

Staples will not hold up to the heat. They'd be good for 5 or 10 burns, become brittle, and then crack the next time you dropped the staff. A hose clamp might work.

Perhaps, if you were using relatively thin rope, you could drill a hole through the staff, pass the rope through that, and knot it/stitch it (using kevlar twine) to itself. With fat rope, you'd probably need to bolt it down much like tape wicking. In any case, you would need to be careful to find some kind of coiling pattern that couldn't fly loose. A single-layer coil going down the staff would be fine, as long as both ends are anchored, but if you've got multiple layers or something, it gets more complicated.

thank you!! it all makes sense now. *is inspired* this has gotten some rather concrete plans on what to do in my head, as well as some reeeeally nifty possibilities. tape wick sounds good to begin, though.

i'm thinking of ways to spiral the wick along the ends...2 lengths of rope wick twisted together and attached along a 1 foot length? this could lead somewhere interesting...i wonder what that would look like? another idea is using rope wick on top of tape wick for a fire streamer-esk effect.

has anyone else tried rope wick instead of tape wick? any poi spinners out there with ideas? i know nothing of poi yet.

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"life begins between the night and the light."

[This message has been edited by Teine (edited 02 December 2001).]

for securing the rope, pins of a fashion could be used. i'm using .75-inch diameter staff. (i really need to switch to metric) i haven't tried this yet, testing still in the works. drill a 1/8 inch hole (or so) through the staff snug against the wrapping on both sides, making the holes perpendicular to each other (one hole per side). using double washers (one regular for the wood, one disk-looking for the wick on each side), bolt the edge of the wicking down, with the wick held between the washers. the non-wick side of the top washer can be bent down slightly for anchoring(?). wire or some such device (kevlar twine?? where do i get it?) can be used to further secure the wick diamond-wrapped around the tops of the bolts. (that may be overkill though...feh. better safe than sorry.) this is in theory so far...if someone sees a design flaw, PLEASE let me know.

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"life begins between the night and the light."

staples bad, got it

what about tieing the rope the same way as making a fire eaters torch (use a hangman's knot) on the first layer of wrapping bolt/clap/hold down tight the rope to the shaft of the staff. the outter layers would thus be metal free and better if you want to do body transfer.

one other idea that may or may not work is to have the staff hollow and feed the rope through the inside and have the end points form the torch heads. this may help with the amount of fuel that is absorbed and the internal rope is unlikely to catch fire due to the lack of oxygen. this is just an idea though

Teine--
My current approach for securing (tape) wicking is to drill a hole through the shaft of the staff, pass a machine screw through the wicking, into the hole, and out the wicking on the other side. Fasten a screw-post (sort of an elongated nut) on the other side, using heat-resistant loctite. Washers at each end, but you don't need washers between the wicking and the shaft, and you don't need very large washers on the outside, either. I do have a layer of copper foil over the shaft (I use wooden shafts) for fireproofing.

Melissa--
My concern with rope wicking is that if it developed some slack (which could happen over time), it could be jarred loose and would come uncoiled and fly loose except where it was anchored. This would take some experimenting. Eating/trailing torches are not generally subject to the same stresses that a staff is...I don't think. So they don't need such care in attaching the wicking.

The idea of a hollow staff filled with rope wicking is very intriguing. You might not get all the wicking soaked, or if you did, the fuel might not all wick out before the fire petered out, but it's still an interesting idea. You could have the overhang coiled around the ends of the staff for the visible wick and pinned down somehow.

For kevlar twine, I'd check at McMaster-Carr (www.mcmaster.com) if you're in the USA.