Forums > Technical Discussion > Colored Flames...

Posted: 11th Jul 2001
Well, I've got comments, if not necessarily answers, to mrmo_nyc's questions.1) Is it OK to soak my kevlar wicks in water for a minute? I see no reason why this would be a problem. My wicks have gotten wet laying in wet grass and while spinning in the rain and I have seen no ill effects other than difficulty in lighting while they are still wet. If you actually soak them, you will need to dry them out thoroughly.2) How can I get them dry? I'd bet a hair dryer will work great. A dessicent like DryRite will also quickly remove the last bit of moisture.3) Can I hold wet wicks over a flame and dry them out?This I would recomend against as it could damage the wicks. Stick with a hair dryer.4) After soaking them in water and drying them, can I soak them in lamp oil andthen spin with pretty colors?You can try. ;-) Be sure to let us know if it actually works!5) Can I hold my wicks under running water to get the LiCl out?Sure sounds reasonable.In any case, before going to all this effort, you ought to try just rolling your wicks in the powdered salt after spinning out. You might lose all the color in the first minute, but at least it is worth a try...-p.

Posted: 11th Jul 2001
I just used colored flames for the first time last week. I was very impressed by how colored they were but, people didn't seem to think it was fire? they thought I smeared a glowstick on my wicks--what do they know??Anywho, I used boric acid and dissolved it in denatured alcohol and soaked my wicks in that. It worked fine--I was scared because I had never used denatured alcohol before but it seemed to work safety-wise like any other fuel and my burn was around 4-6 minutes. The flame was a blue green and I thought it looked pretty cool!Although this wasn't the exact answers to your questions--I hope it helps.

Posted: 12th Jul 2001
ff, did your wicks hold the color for supplimental burns? I've heard that it is hard to get the salts out...Thanks for the tips pj... I'll try it and see and report back. Of course it would help if I built my own wicks first but who needs to put the horse before the cart?Any other tips would still be appreciated...

PK is a god.. i love the Peeekster.

.:PK:. [poiinthepark founder member]


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 12th Jul 2001
Hey,i myself am interested on making flames different colours, and i am gonna try with boric acid although i think that your fuel needs to be a petroleum or alcoholic based fuel otherwise it doesn't dissolve...in other words it may not work with kerosene which i know alot of us use! And if someone knows what other compounds can be used to produce differnet colours i would be interested because the other chemicals to change the flames colour are usually pretty hard to get hold of because they are things like anti-depressents and stuff.~Serpentice & :Chotys:

Posted: 12th Jul 2001
you can always unwick your chains, wrap the chemical in the kevlar (or dunk) and then wick them back up again..this definitely works.lots of green flame for quite a while too..although it was some Cu thing so what do you expect

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.- B.B.King

Posted: 30th Jul 2001
FYI, I tried my brilliant idea of dunking in lamp oil and then sprinkling liberally with boric acid to get a green flame. The boric acid will sticks to the wet poi quite nicely. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all. You get a wee bit more green than you would if you hadn't. Otherwise it's just your basic orange flame.Looks like you actually need to dissolve it in a soluable fuel.Bummer.

PK is a god.. i love the Peeekster.

.:PK:. [poiinthepark founder member]


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 2nd Aug 2001
Yeah I concur, dipping don't work, not at all... and it sends stuff shooting off in sprays of firey rain, pretty but bad... sets the grass on fire :|Could we be clever little chemists and work out something that is miscible with kero to work as a solvent for any flame colouring compounds we choose to add?If it was cheap and plentiful, that would be nice toooo Incidentally, you could also work on an elixir of life, that would be equally useful...------------------"O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention." - William ShakespeareCheck out my Online Gallery!B l A c K i E

x X x ß £ Å Ĉ К ß î я Ð x X x

Posted: 29th Jan 2002
my problem is that when i use the boric/alcohol to get green,i can't for some reason keep the flamegoing on, it keeps going out. Maybe its because i use towel wicks or i don't know.Can anyone help me on this?? or do i need to soak them longer, help plesase

I don't dance, i let the music dance me.

Posted: 29th Jan 2002
I've never worked with towel wicks OR alcohol but I'd assume your problem is the alcohol. It seems pretty easy to blow out alcohol fires.Anyone else?

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Posted: 29th Jan 2002
I've tried both boric acid and copper sulfate dissolved in isopropyl alcohol. Both produced a pretty but weak green flame. I thought the copper sulfate, also known as cupric sulfate and blue vitrol and CuSO4, worked best. The flames were too weak for either poi or staff, going out almost immediately. I was planning to use it on the wicks on my fire helmet-- I don't think I move around fast enough to extinguish the flames, but I am concerned about the toxic gases it might give off that close to my head. Any ideas about how dangerous the fumes are?Maximus

Posted: 30th Jan 2002
i use simple methylated spirits to dissolve the salts, ive got poi that have red green, purple and blue flames!! COOL MAN DO IT!!i just dissolve the saltsa in the fuel, soak the poi with fuel and there ya go....the thing is that the different colours show up depending on what sort of fuel ya use...i.e., as meths burns clear the colours come out!(even though you may not have out any salts in it) but when i use something more like kero, the colours tend not to show till the flames are dying down quite a bitthe salts i use arecopper chloride for greenstrontium nitrate for red(these two when combined like in my poi give off quite a few different shades of the two colours)potassium hypo whazzit whodacky (i cant remember the big name for it at the mo) for purple.....ummm sorry guys, cant think of where youd get them from, i kinda have access to all sorts of goodies for free in my lab (he he he fire!!)but not to worry, i'll just tick up some more methanol (thats the stuff if you can get it) and go for more raids on the chemical store and see what othe rcolours i can find!!!

Posted: 31st Jan 2002
Potassium phosphate is the salt used for purple. Drop it in a bucket of methanol (denatured alcohol) and stir until the salt dissolves.

Fear the evil monkey!

Posted: 31st Jan 2002
so jonathon... what do you use for blue?

wulff

Posted: 31st Jan 2002
So do u guys think that alcohol fule(s) are easly put out? Like when i'm spinning poi?hummmm.???

I don't dance, i let the music dance me.

Posted: 31st Jan 2002
for blue i just used lithium and copper, ya see ive got about 4 diff types of salts on my poi and they all fizzle and crackle to their own merry colours, i guess if you want one colour stick with 1 salt, but i reckon it looks cool to see all the colours coming through.......i agree to a certain extent that the alcohols can be easy to put out, but they can take a while to properly light up to, the first time i used methanol (lab grade stuff)the damm things were burning for like nearly 15 mins, not to bad but i was trying to use 4............ and not nearly sober enough (highly enthusiastic though)but methylated spirits is fine, wait for the poi to light up properly on the first burn (this takes a while for me, like sometimes the best part of a minute, but ive got 5 foot on each poi) once the poi are nice and warmed up, ive never had a problem, if ya want me to find stuff for specific colours that will dissolve in meths, sweet as, too many people ive met think its a bit of an elitest secret thing, not all the salts will dissolve in meths (something about poles and covalent bonds a foggy muzz in my head is mumbling!!)so i'll try and find some blue and post results.one thing to remember though, there are many salts possible with each type of metal, each one gives a subtley different shade, so it pays to have a nosey around and see what youz can get your hands one.g., i prefer the red from strontium over lithium or ironbut that i guess is in the eye of the beholder....................p.s. i just had a nosey and apparently something like calcium chloride will give ya blue flames.... cant say whether its soluble in meths or not, but if you go hunting round foe various calcium salts no doubt youll get the effect your after!!!p.p.s some of the salts can give off some pretty nasty fumes when ya doing them, but only if the poi arent moving (maybe something to do with moving poi having more O2? any ideas??) so keep them moving and if they stop, dont put your head over the flames to buzz out on the freaky colours, ooohh yuck bitter experience!!!!!go for multi coloured poi, way cool man!![This message has been edited by jonathan (edited 01 February 2002).][This message has been edited by jonathan (edited 01 February 2002).]

Posted: 1st Feb 2002
well i've twirled green with boric before... gawd that was noxious!!! heheheh we (me, vertigo, vortex, blaze, and jeff [dunno if he has a nick yet] is we) have masks, but after the first few burns we kinda gave up on them.anyways i'm really interested in blue, but thats just for now.. i'll probally end up with multicolours like u suggested. I'm going to use a my tube core kevlar wicks for color since i've got my new 2x4 cathedrals for regular (i dunno wanna keep them seperate.. maybe later i'll go for bigger wicks on color). This should help lessen burntimes from jonathon's 15 minutes too.now what i wanna do is get around to making my staff... and but 4 wicks on it and find some way to alternate the colors so 4 different.. that would rock hehehehemuahahahawulff

wulff

Posted: 31st Jan 2002
i would recommend souking each of the four wicks seperately before ya put them on the staff, could even burn them a few times to get the salts in there......that way you have a better chance of getting 4 distinct colours, but, when you soak them in pure meths so the colours will show up, bear in mind that youre gonna get some contamination from the run off of extra fuel from betewwn the wicks, probably wont do much but the salts will dissolve slightly, it could work out that you have two wicks on each end with different colours, but some interesting hues due to some mixingfor some reason lab grade methanol just soaks into the wicks like a bastard and basically wont go out, will set everything that the poi bump into on fire (yep me included!! he he he)because it was free and id never used it before i left the poi soaking for ages in a big bucket!!i dont really think you'll have a hassle with long burn times, just if you get the pure stuff, bear in mind it goes for ages, so even if you get a squeeze top bottle and squirt it on? i found that was an o.k. way to do it wulff, stay away from anything that stinks..... there are probably easier things to get hold of that will work better than boric acid, i dont know where you got it from, but its pretty toxic....... my guess yougot it frrom some sort of wood preservative or rainproofer ect?dunno......most local chemists will have copper sulphate or the like, and they will probably be able to point ya in the right direction to get some of those other metallic salts!!

Posted: 6th Feb 2002
i´m impressed! where can i get more info?(just today i did a chemical exam in the lab, that was partly based on fire-colours. so i myself got the idea to put this on poi)Didn´t expect all of you to try it out!------------------

Posted: 6th Feb 2002
Hi Wanja,There's a site at https://www.geocities.com/firepoi/home.html
(not too sure how to make that a link). but the site has a listing of various chemicals and the colours they produce. What it doesn't tell you is how much before the metal salt gives an effective result nor what fuel to use it with. For that you need a Merck Index (heap big fat book with much information on chemicals). Try a uni library reference section.I usually play with methylated spirits and haven't had problems with coloured flames going out. Noise, on the other hand, is a bit of a problem especially with 2 staves (staffs?).Sabine

Posted: 10th Apr 2002
*bump*

for the curious...

Posted: 29th Apr 2002
Any ideas on where to get ahold of a nice, fairly pure (but not necessarily comletely pure) methanol (aka methylated spirits)? Could be kind of nice for some of my current projects.

thanks, and peace

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind - Mahatma Gandhi

Posted: 29th Apr 2002
maybe i am stupid but wouldn's threading copper wire through the wicks work?
or do they melt or something...just curious
Morgy

Out to Wrong Rights and Depress the Opressed.

Posted: 29th Apr 2002
I dont think copper wire would work, you can get copper wire reinforced kevlar and that doesn't melt, copper sulphate would probably be better. Does anyone know if we could combine sparkle poi with coloured fire?

The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer-- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.-- Ken Kesey

Posted: 30th Apr 2002
Hi Folks,

I didnt get a chance to read all these posts but I am going let you know about my experimentations with colours.

The main problem I have found when trying to use coloured flames with my poi is the fact that the chemicals are completely insoluable in Parrafin which my wicks are usually soaked in. Also methylated spirit does not mix with paraffin so it has to be done with pure meths.

When burning I disolve as much boric acid (or other salts) in the meths and then soak the wicks for a while before burning. I dont know if it is because the wicks get used mainly with parrafin but it seems that the meths gives a very weak flame (although it is a nice pretty colour )

My next project is making some pure colour wicks for glastonbury - here is how I intend to make them :

1. Take a crepe bandage of about the right size for the wicks you want to make.

2. Unravel and liberally sprinkle with Boric Acid (or other colourant), this may be aided by dampening the bandage with meths.

3. Tightly wrap the bandage and then cover with denim.

I am hoping to keep these wicks solely for performances where I want to use coloured flames and only dunk them in methylated spirits and I will try an dget some piccies of the construction and first burn with these

I have found that the denim lasts fairly well as long as you make sure there are the minimum of frayed edges showing and you dont burn until the wicks go out (when the flame starts to die down use a damp cloth to put out)

Hope this helps,

Mark P

Posted: 30th Apr 2002
I've heard for best results you need a set of wicks that are dedicated to a particular colored flame - and that the more you soak them in the same colored solution, the brighter the color will get. I've also heard of rolling up some powdered salts inside the wick as you're rolling it up.

I doubt that copper wire would make any difference. I think it need to be dissolved for it to actually burn.

I've only tried green (boric acid) so far. I know it's toxic - but it's the easiest thing to get around here (sold as roach powder at any hardware store). I've learned to time my breathing when the wicks are not next to my face

where can I find this lab-grade methanol that burns so long? sounds really cool...

Wulff: I'm guessing you already have the staff made & soaking the wicks BEFORE you put them on the staff is not really an option...
Hold the wick over a container of colored fuel, then using a turkey baster to put fuel only on that wick - don't get too much on & it won't drip onto the other wicks when you spin out.

Posted: 30th Apr 2002
I'm not quite sure why rex bumped this thread up. It is mine and all [blushes] but there are much better "colored flame" threads in days gone by.

As for myself, I quickly became disinterested in colored flames as the results never quite outweighed the annoyance...

None the less, it does seem to be a popular topic...

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Posted: 29th Apr 2002
Seems to me, that alot of the same idea's that go into potery and glazes can be used to produce lots of pretty colors.

Also seems to me that fireworks burn all sorts of colors.

IMHO

-nasu

Posted: 1st May 2002
Hmmm Nasu,

There are plans afoot to try using some fireworks, we have had reasonable success with sparklers bound together but are looking to try some kind of roman candle and possibly rockets!!!!

Needless to say we will try to make some video and be fully covered from head to foot in non flamable material, speaking of which has anyone got a motorcycle helmet that we could borrow

Mark P