Fire poi design - help?

My biggest problem with my poi is that while I spin rather quickly with glow poi, my fire poi get very heavy with all the hardware and fuel. So i went down to the hardware store and did some brainstorming and came up with something someone may have or may have not thought of before:

I used a smallish ball chain, though a larger one would work well. Instead of wrapping the kevlar around an eye bolt and securing it with nuts and washers as per usual, I took different steps. Instead, I wrapped the poi around a spring about a half-inch in diameter. I stitched it up, and I even made some stiches to the spring in case my kevlar wanted to jump off. Then I threaded the ball chain though the spring. Instead of putting any sort of coupling at the end, I put on of those little doodads at the end that are used for...I guess for if the chain were on a lamp or a fan and you needed something to put on the end. You know what I'm talking about; it's shaped like a little bell. Only the one I put on the end is very big, bigger than the inside diameter of the spring and it's flanged to boot. The only problem I could see with this is if the hardware got hot enough to weaken the metal and the ball slipped out of the flanged part. But I guessed I have about as much chance of this happening as I do my chains breaking.

So this is very nice because the only hardware to note besides the chain is the spring and the flange, and those are practically negligible. When cocked and loaded, they are almost too light, but I think I could fix that with more kevlar.

What is also very nice about these is that when you dip them, the fuel makes contact with the outside and inside of the kevlar. They take two seconds to soak.

The problem I had was that they burned for such a short time. We were using coleman fuel for the first time, and I was very surprised to see the poi go FWUMP and light up almost instantaneously. I'm not sure I liked it, and I attributed the short burn time to the flash point of the fuel. but then i tried soaking it in paraffin a few times, and it didn't burn as long as I wanted. It was longer than the coleman fuel, but not long enough. Really, my friend bought me kevlar for my birthday, but she didn't buy enough. The heads are extremely small, and I think that's the problem. But I cant help but thinking that the available oxygen to the core of the poi heads is causing it to burn more quickly. Do you think? If so, then it should be producing larger flames. I don't have anything to compare it to, though.

Anyway, the springs are loger than the width of the kevlar, so a bit of spring hangs out. it's great for siral wraps, because you dont have to *snap* it as much. Or at least I didn't think I had to, they more or less bounced right back in perfect split time.

I'm worried about the end part; I don't want it coming off and letting my poi slip off and hit someone's kid. Also, I'm afraid the spring might allow the wick to flex, so I may use a short section of pipe with holes drilled.

Give me all your advice!

Oh, also. You can hold each end of the chain and let the poi head slip to the middle of the chain, effectively making it a little zippy orbit, only the spring catches on the chain, so it doesn't zip very much, which I like.

How about using a cable instead? It could work.

Thanks.

Forums > Technical Discussion > Fire poi design - help?