Forums > Technical Discussion > fuel testing

Posted: 28th Jul 2001
Great idea, nicely done, useful information, Bravo.

PK is a god.. i love the Peeekster.

.:PK:. [poiinthepark founder member]


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

Posted: 28th Jul 2001
now if someone would try breathing the biodiesel i would be really interested...about the only thing keeping me from doing it is the toxicity...Pere

Posted: 29th Jul 2001
Pere--I believe biodiesel is non-toxic--that's part of the appeal. I haven't found an MSDS sheet on the specific brand I used, but I've seen data on other biodiesel products, and they're all about as dangerous as cooking oil.The stuff I used is "soyclean" (see https://www.soyclean.com).
The package explicitly says "non-toxic to humans" and "the natural alternative to toxic products." Gotta be safer than kero, right?

Laugh while you can, monkey-boy

Posted: 30th Jul 2001
nice info, thanks a lot------------------"Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!!

Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!!

Posted: 30th Jul 2001
nice info, thanks a lotpeace ------------------"Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!!

Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!!

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 30th Jul 2001
alright now someone level with me......what is the safest easy to get ahold of fuel to get for fire breathing.......been using moon shine....now that is toxic!!!

Posted: 31st Jul 2001
cue the pele firebreathing faq but basically from the fire point of view kerosene or pure lamp oil is "safest" for breathing because its less volatile than alcohol and wont burn back into your mouth. however both of the above are chemically toxic and can cause poisoning which is why i won't learn to breath with them. however if the soy stuff turns out to be breathable then i would be more likely to learn it. needless to say, get the real lowdown on breathing hazards...search the board its been discussed a lot...Pere

Posted: 10th Aug 2001
Two question about biodiesel:1) Has anyone tested fire-breathing with this as of yet?2) Has anyone tested coloring a biodiesel flame?

How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

Posted: 10th Aug 2001
I have not tried blowing or eating fire with biodiesel (or with any other fuel, for that matter), but based on the MSDSs I've seen for different grades of biodiesel, most *seem* to be much safer than petrochemicals for those purposes: they have only a few percent volatile organic compound content, compared with roughly half VOCs for petrochemical fuels.https://www.soygold.com/ is a site that sells the stuff (not the same as I used in my testing, but I am going to try a few grades of this stuff as well) and has some clear MSDSs and other safety information.Unfortunately for us, there seems to be no Fire Performer Research Institute that looks into the questions that concern us, like what fuels are safest. Perhaps Mr Mo will look this info over and chime in.

Laugh while you can, monkey-boy

Posted: 10th Aug 2001
quite informative and helpful, thank you.-------------------nee

-nee

Posted: 13th Aug 2001
I was all set to order a gallon of biodiesel for testing purposes until I discovered that it was twice as expensive to have it shipped as the cost of the fuel itself.A little bit more research located a factory somewhere in middle america that is only about 80 miles out of the way on my trip to Burning Man. An 80 mile side trip is insignificant considering we'll be driving well over 2500 miles to get there...-p.

Posted: 14th Aug 2001
I breathed it, it was rank:3 Litres of Bio Diesel was given to me today by a small time manufacturer who is very interested in this cause. It has apparently "the toxicity of table salt", it's made from canola oil and tastes like all the bad stuff in deep fried foods. The texture is really horrible and feels like melted butter which is quite rank. It's hard to clean out of the inside of your mouth (I ended up gargling with kerosene). The guy who made it has some interesting ideas for making it more tasty though.Fire Breathing: It's not as volatile as kero so at first I could only get small spurts of flame, but with a bit of practice, making the droplets as small as I could, I got a few decent blows. The initial thought was that its more like spitting long, fast bursts of flame rather the breathing nice bellowing clouds as you can with kero. Maybe more practice is all it will take. It seems at least as safe as kerosene and you certainly don't get the kero burps although I feet like I've munged through $10 worth of deep fried chips, I'm sure you'd get fat using this stuff very often. I feel a little ill. Perhaps raising the temperature of the fuel would make it more volatile and less oily in the mouth. I've taken some photos as well as some of me breathing kero so you can tell the difference, a link should be posted tomorrow or the next day. I'll try and get a video camera tomorrow and make a small documentary with some other peoples opinions of the stuff and maybe some blows with kero/BioD mixtures and post that as a *.mpg. You'll hear from me soon.

Posted: 18th Aug 2001
Well Santo you beat me to it. I tried Biodiesel for breathing tonight. I had the same results. Using the Soyclean Biodiesel I was able to get some decent fireballs but I do a lot of pull-away moves that can't be done with it. It has a strange crackle sound when burning and doesn't do as nice of a rolling flame like lamp oil which I normally use. However for a beginner this stuff would probably be a lot safer. I was attempting to see if there was any way to do a pull-away and did a couple blow-outs with the tourch only a couple inches from my mouth (something I'd never attempt with lamp oil)there was no blowback, this stff simply wouldn't light unless it was going across a torch. However is there different grades of biodiesel? I noticed on the MSDS the flash point was 300f and I found a MSDS on Lamp oil showing it around 150f. To me it just tasted like soybeans and it smells like roasted soybeans when burning. I did also try a 50/50 mixture of lamp oil and Soyclean, this burned easier and helped for better control but still limited some of the fancier moves.

How is it ever possible to feel safe and secure in a world in which everyone dies?

Posted: 18th Aug 2001
Actually, there *are* different grades of biodiesel, and I am going to be playing with three different ones from Soygold (https://www.soygold.com). I do not blow or eat fire, so I won't be able to comment on those aspects, but I will report my results.

Laugh while you can, monkey-boy

Posted: 20th Sep 2001
Just wondering has any one done any testing on burn times and brightness comparisons between lamp oil and fire water?

Posted: 20th Sep 2001
If you wanna bring some lamp oil Ade, we have fire water and we can give it a try!When the tests are being done, im assuming that different wicks are being used? I mean u cant just dip the same wicks again into another fuel and try it out, i guess in a perfect world all tests would be done on all identical new wicks....which by the way Ade i can provide

- Industrial design knows of no article more useful than the milk crate -

Posted: 20th Sep 2001
Done, I'll have to swing by the park for some tests - would be beneficial for all of us to see the comparisons I'd reckon.And you're right Frenzie, testing between fuels should be done on new identical wicks for a reasonable comparison between the two to be made.Srping has srung, the grass has riz,I wonder where the twirler's is...

Posted: 21st Sep 2001
Well im making some double staves this weekend, so have 4 new wicks to try out with Im personally a fan of fire water so far as it burns cleaner than kero, though ive been limited to using kero, fire water and citronella .....

- Industrial design knows of no article more useful than the milk crate -

Posted: 21st Sep 2001
Cool, will see you soon. I'm off now to enjoy the rest of the Spring Equinox weekend. Happy constructing!!