Forums > Social Chat > Fuel Mixes

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 25th Jan 2001
Hiya, well I use parrafin / kerosene for practrising cause its cheap and a good fuel. I does smell ALOT and it tastes terrible. it also is a bit smokey. For fire infront of people ie busking and public demonstrations I use shellsol t from shell chemicals which has no smell and no taste, got the idea from www.incendium.org and Its great stuff even allthough I havn't been using it long. Has a very high flash point so it is quite safe for breathing. either of these fuels a good to use on all fire equipment and for breathing.hope this helpspeace outgarbo

be excellent to each other: safe:

Posted: 29th Jan 2001
i read every where "dont use gasoline"what happens???i really wanna know!

Posted: 29th Jan 2001
what you mean petrol gasoline?

be excellent to each other: safe:

Posted: 29th Jan 2001
Mr Jeff,Gasoline/Petrol is explosive and produces Carbon Monoxide (CO) when burned. The eplosive part is pretty self explanatory (explosions can kill the toughest of people).The Carbon monoxide part will kill you due to lack of oxygen. CO bonds rather firmly to the to the haem group in the haemoglobin in your blood. The haem group is the part that usually carries oxygen around. With the CO inhibiting your bodies normal uptake of oxygen, you'll end up dead quite quickly. It's the same as people who kill themselves by sticking a hose from their exhaust pipe into the car ... sit their with the windows wound up and suffocate themselves.There are more problems with using gas/petrol (additives and such) ... but these two should be reason enough never to touch the stuff as far as fire performing is concerned.Ðraevon

Posted: 29th Jan 2001
i guess ill stick to kerosene and coleman camp fuel!i dont exactly wanna go KABOOM!!

Posted: 31st Jan 2001
I once used camping fuel... My friend was supposed to buy some kerosene, and by mistake he bought camping fuel. So my friends and I figured "eh who cares lets try it." And now a word of advise DON'T TRY IT! it splashes all over the place, you'll finish spinning and the next thing you see is fire all over the place. Yeah I know what your thinking "Use some commen sense", oh well we knew if worse case senrio occured to roll in the sand. hehe yup yup I spun out too[This message has been edited by Alexlexex (edited 01 February 2001).]

NY FirebatsA shirt that is soaked in fuel burns very nicely. - Not By Me

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 31st Jan 2001
Alexlexex, I think I'm missing something. Did you and your friends forget to spin out your excess fuel before lighting up. I've never heard of white gas being any apt to spray that kero. Though I do know towel wick are harder to spin out than kevlar, so they're more apt to spray. Does anyone have other ideas on this? Diana

Posted: 31st Jan 2001
The only problem I've ever seen with camping fuel is it's tendency to burn up too fast. The only person I've ever had the good fortune to twirl with used to use a mix of coleman fuel and parafin lamp oil... No problems there...(I prefer the straight lamp oil myself...)

Posted: 31st Jan 2001
what kind of fuel lasts the longest(my camping fuel last bout 40 seconds)i need something that lasts a little bit longer

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 31st Jan 2001
There's a comparison of fuels (burn time and other concerns) on the Changing of the Guards thread.

Posted: 10th Feb 2011
That link doesn't work anymore.

Posted: 11th Feb 2011
I have a quick question about using petrol/gasoline.
Everyone seems to say that its explosive. I dont disagree with this, but given the right conditions, all fuels will explode.
Is everyone going off the fact that petrol/gasoline is used in car engines and it explodes in there?
Diesel is used in engines but you cant light that with a lighter. Also, you can put a cigarette out in both of them (i havnt tried this myself but it was demonstrated to me). Also, wasnt kero used in early jet engines?
I definatly agree with the gases that are produce. They are definatly harmful, especialy with the additives, but doesnt kero and other fuels produce similar gases?
Now im NOT suggesting petrol/gasoline is safe. Im just curious why people think its so bad, because im a mechanic myself and have burned petrol/gasoline many times and never had any problems.

'You can only be free when you have nothing to loose'

Posted: 11th Feb 2011
I believe the others burn cleaner. But the reason gasoline is SOOOO explosive is because it's so ridiculously volatile and its fumes go BOOM! Haven't you ever lit something with even a little gasoline on it? The fire just goes poof out in in all directions like a small explosion. Its will work like a fuel-air bomb. The absolute biggest safety concern is all of your fueling equipment. If even the slightest little spark or flame gets anywhere near it, it WILL explode and go up in flames as well as anything around it. Also anything your head touches freshly lit is going to light up and light up hot! Gasoline burns very very hot.

The only luck is bad luck.

Shut up before I stall my poi up your ass

Posted: 11th Feb 2011
Sorry, but i dont think thats right. I agree that it burns hot but there are other fuels that are used that burn hotter. Some spirits that are used for example. Also, if i got a cup of petrol and droped a lit cigarette into it, it would just go out. Also, take a look at petrol bombs. Very simple, a glass bottle, some petrol and a rag as a wick. When the wick is wet with petrol, light it. It doesnt go boom. When its thrown and the bottle smashes, the lit wick will then light the fuel because it has spread. Petrol is only explosive when its fumes are mixed with the right amount of air. Thats when you get a perfect flame, just like a blow torch. Now i have worked with petrol, petrol on fire and fire around petrol. I have never had any accidents.
Again, im not trying to say that its safe, just trying to find out why its so bad.
If i get chance, i will test out this theory in a safe controled environment, because i do stuff like that lol. Unles someone can give me other reasons why its so bad to use.

'You can only be free when you have nothing to loose'

Posted: 11th Feb 2011
Have you ever lit a campfire with gasoline poured on it? Ive done it with just a little, about a quarter to half a cup. Someone used a stick lighter to light it and the plume of fire that came from the lit fumes singer the hair on his arm almost up to his elbow. Look up with gasoline on youtube if you don't believe me. Although most are excessive amounts of it you till get the picture. If I remember correctly there was an analogy for the explosiveness. What it was was an empty gallon can of gasoline (as it it still has fumes) when lit will explode with the power of I remember half a stick of dynamite, but for the sake of I might be wrong of that, let's say a quarter. I'll look it up a little later to see if I can find it. Whereas white gas was about a tenth I think. It was a lot less, but I'll look it up to see if I can find it.

The only luck is bad luck.

Shut up before I stall my poi up your ass

Posted: 11th Feb 2011
Well my search on Google didn't find it. But I used to play with gasoline (yeah smart me) and when it was in a puddle it would always make a big poof outwards.

While at practice someone's accidentally had their fuel can with white gas in it knocked over. So guess what we decided to do... Light it! Well it didn't really poof out too much, not enough to like go up your arm and singe hair or burn you. If it was gasoline I'd want to throw a lit stick at it from like 20ft away Being a Michigan hick when I go up north (Michigan speak for cottage :p) I've had my fun with gasoline believe me, and it's dangerous I know, but I'll admit I loved it and did it and not always as much safety precautions as I should've especially being a kid.

The only luck is bad luck.

Shut up before I stall my poi up your ass

Posted: 12th Feb 2011
Originally Posted By: https://www.homeofpoi.com/articles/FireSafety.php
GASOLINE, PAINT THINNER, AIRPLANE FUEL, and other highly volatile fuels are extremely explosive and extremely toxic. The fumes remaining in a one-gallon can that has been emptied of gasoline can explode with the force of a stick of dynamite. When it is very hot and humid, gasoline fumes will not readily disperse and may be ignited as much as a half hour after all the original products are capped and stored. The fumes from Coleman, lighter fluid, and barbecue starter will explode almost as readily, but not with quite the same force -- say, a half-stick of dynamite. Kerosene and lamp oil are fairly hard to blow up, which is why they are used in lamps and home heaters.

If you spin with petrol/gas, enjoy your entry in the Darwin Aawards. (not saying you will or anything...)

The existance of flamethrowers says that someone, somewhere, at sometime said "I need to set that thing on fire, but it's too far away."

Posted: 13th Feb 2011
Dont get me wrong, I dont intend to use petrol/gasoline for fire poi and I'm not saying that you are wrong. Its just, to me, whenever 1 person (usually one thats had a bad experience or something) says something like thats really bad, you souldnt use it... then the next person adds a bit more to it and so on. In the end, its made out to be something extremely bad, dangerous... When in fact its just bad because of the first persons experience (If you see what I'm trying to get at).
I have had my fair share of fun with burning things. I think we all have at some point. But never have I had any problems with burning petrol/gasoline. I think its more, you have to do it right.
As for thinners, is meths, turps (or turpentine substiture) and white spirit used as thinners? These dont seem to be that bad. Ok, they smell bad and give off nasty fumes, but didnt think they were as voletile.
Aircraft fuel. Didn't early jets use kero/parafin?
I tried to find some videos on the tube with people burning petrol/gasoline and all the videos I found were not down to the fact that petrol/gasoline is so voletile, its down to their own stupidity. For example, use a whole galon of petrol/gasoline to start a bonfire, or chuck a load of petrol/gasoline, let it sit for a while so it can start to evapourate and allow the fumes to gather before lighting it. I have even seen people use a whole 25ltr jerry can.
Sorry, but thats their own stupid fault and not the fuels.

Now 1 thing that I will agree on is the gases that are produced after burning. They are not safe and can make you bad after a while. But if its done outsude with a slight breeze or something, then its not as bad.

Oh, just had another thought. Petrol/gasoline has different RON ratings. I dunno what its like over there, but our Premium Unleaded is 95RON. We then have Super Unleaded which can go anything up to 100RON (depending on the supplier). Now I beleive that 100RON Unleaded is used in higher performance engines. With this being the case, it actually burns slower and is actuall a little harder to ignight. This stops whats called detonation which is the fuel ignighting before the spark plug fires.
Any views on this (just out of curiosity)?

'You can only be free when you have nothing to loose'

Posted: 13th Feb 2011
They're not talking about WWII airplane fuel, they're talking about modern aviation fuel. NOT kerosene, but you are right early airplanes did use kerosene engines.

As for thinners. The only use I know of them is using denatured alcohol (I think it's methanol spirits correct me if I'm wrong) for colored flames because it dissolves the salts. That's what I've seen people use and man is it cool! And that stuff is soo volitile, to sow me he spilled a small puddle on the ground and it was gone in less than a minute. Also put a little on my finger and it was just gone in like 1o seconds and it left my finger cold. Also the guy using it was commenting about how hot the flame was. I don't know about the fumes let off by it, but if it's just purely methanol or ethanol it would just be letting off water and CO2 and a little CO as with just about any fire I think.

I don't know about the whole RON thing, but you're right on most of the videos. But I'm talking about MY personal experience with about a quarter cup of gasoline to start a fire and lighting it less than 10 seconds later and the flame from the "detonation" crawling about a third up my friend's arm. I'd say it had to do a lot ith all the surface area of the sticks, but if you have it laying around to be used as fuel for poi, I see bad things happening. And remember that even if you are handling it carefully, things can happen that maybe you forgot about something or someone else did something. Like if fire spraying from a freshly lit poi strayed close to your equipiment. Or if someone lit to close to it... There are so many things that could happen that I can't even think of. I've seen it happen with white gas and their can caught on fire. They were doing everything how they should've, but fire ended up getting to close somehow and POOF!

The main fact is that gasoline, while it could be used without anything going wrong, becomes very easy for something to go wrong. Well I have to leave for work now, if you have any more questions just ask.

The only luck is bad luck.

Shut up before I stall my poi up your ass

Posted: 13th Feb 2011
It could have been old war planes, im not sure. I just remember that kero was used in jet engines.
Yea, meths or methylated spirits and Denatured alcohol are all the same thing. Just ethanol mixed with other things. I just remembered burning this stuff and remember that its an almost invisible flame. I would have considered this to be more dangerous than petrol/gasoline because it burns so hot as well.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it at that, because we could go on for days lol. I was just curious why so many people think its soo bad. Purely because I have never had any bad experiences with it.
So thanks

So yea, dont use petrol/gasoline with your fire poi. Give it me to put in my car

'You can only be free when you have nothing to loose'

Posted: 15th Feb 2011
what kind of idiot asks about using gasoline as a spinning fuel? Are you a caveman? Seriously dude. spinner of detroit is right, the cigarete was not hot enough to burn gasoline, if you get a lighter and light it you with most likely get attacked by fire. Take thermite for example, you can drop ten cigarettes on it but it will only light with something hot enough, magnesium based like high powered firework fuses (as example) and thermite burns through almost any metal. so you can go use some gasoline, or thermite, or you might as well just light your hands on fire and spin those around. Just use kerosine, if you for Some reason can't find that then buy some charcoal lighter fluid which can be found EVERYWHERE!!! Big white bottle, i use that, if you get fire spraying everywhere, you need to stop spinning fire and look up proper safety techniques before you spin again, you can do a spin off which uses a spinning force to remove the excess fluid off, or get a towel and wrap it around your poi to drain the excess into the towel, sorry to be so negative but you dont need to be hurting yourself or others noob

Posted: 15th Feb 2011
He's not that noob, he's just curious about why it's so bad. I think it's a good thing he asked so he doesn't keep doing it. Also if you can't find kero/lamp oil, and charcoal lighter fluid is too expensive for you, it is for me, than Coleman's camp fuel is a popular choice among spinners. I personally love it. It's bright, it's loud (which I like the most), the flame is massive on my poi, and it burns somewhat cleanly. It doesn't smoke much at all, but it does leave some soot, not nearly as much as kero though.

I also when I'm outside like to use a mix of about 1/4-1/2 white gas (Coleman's) and the rest kerosene. I think the flame looks better with kero in it, the white gas cuts down the smoke and sot of the kero, and the main thing is IT'S CHEAPER! kerosene is cheap as hell, but really dirty when you burn it so I decided to mix with white gas one day and yay I got a good fuel. It also has a good burn time and the kero gives it that more orange colored flame. Also it's less dangerous than white gas, which isn't that dangerous really other than it will light in a puddle (can) and on your skin, the mx won't and neither will kero. Kero/lamp oil are by far the safest to use and is what most sites will recommend you use. Many sites also call it paraffin, and some call white gas Naphtha. But Naphtha is really an umbrella term that means a lot of things, it's just also a common name for white gas.

You may also come across a fuel called Kleen Heat I think it's spelled, it's a smokeless kerosene replacement for use in heaters to keep down smoke and smell. I've been told it can aggravate asthma so when I get to trying it I should probably have an inhaler and a wet towel with me to put out my poi just in case. I suggest the same for you if you have asthma.
Here is a review of it if you wanna see, you can get it at Home Depot for I think $12: https://fireworkers.tribe.net/thread/dd4cf4bb-a858-4d04-85e4-368b1788e8c0

Denatured alcohol, just use it for colored flames, but warning it eats your heads, don't use your good heads, get a cheap pair for it.

Lamp oil... Great fuel, should be the longest burn time you'll get, it's purified kerosene. Many types have different things mixed in for smell, you may or may not want it. I wouldn't. But someone at a practice before was using the kind with canola oil to keep away mosquitoes and it works! So that's a helpful thing for you, especially if you're camping or something. Lamp oil has less soot and smoke then normal K-1 kerosene from the pump, but it's about the same price as white gas meaning it's much more than the K-1 Kero, which last time I got it it was about $3 per gallon which is just about the only reason I like it. If I'm burning a lot I use it so I don't just eat my wallet.

From my experience, kerosene and lamp oil burn away your heads the LEAST. using white gas has been eating away at my Isis poi, and on Salza's site they recommend for the longest life on your poi to use paraffin (lamp oil).

I think that's about all the useful info I have on fuels. I suggest you experiment to find what you like the best, it's all personal preference my friend. Please be safe!

The only luck is bad luck.

Shut up before I stall my poi up your ass