Bushcraft Candle

[atlatlman]

Here's a bushcraft candle I made the other week. I smoothed a hollow out in the rock with a round stone, I then placed a small amount of beef fat in the hollow. I then placed in a triangle piece of birch polypore for the wick.


[video=youtube;lTvYc7yUmU0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTvYc7yUmU0[/video]

 

[Clouston98]

Good stuff mate!

 

[crosslandkelly]

Nice.

 

[milius2]

looks very impressive, how long do you think it would burn?

 

[Mick721]

I bet that smells good too

 

[atlatlman]

looks very impressive, how long do you think it would burn?

Fifty minutes without touching it mate. It would have burnt a lot longer if I had of topped it up with beef fat. It didn't really smell of anything Mick.

 

[Greg]

That is pretty cool..! ;-)

 

[atlatlman]

Thanks Greg. It started to rain after the video finished but it didn't put it out. It also stood up to the wind the night before as well.

 

[milius2]

that's some great results then, it is practical too if you can refill it with fat. Could be a decoration to an outdoor table or something. Thanks for showing!

 

[atlatlman]

that's some great results then, it is practical too if you can refill it with fat. Could be a decoration to an outdoor table or something. Thanks for showing!

It worked better than I thought it was going too. The wick only starts burning itself when it's not submerged in fat. I'll have to see how long a burn time I can get with topping it up.

 

[Joonsy]

thats great atlatlman, thanks for sharing. I had to have a play, had no polypore at hand so just been and got some from the local woods (plenty of the stuff by me), also having no beef fat I just used ‘lard’ instead (I know, impatient to have a go), I filled an empty tea-candle holder (completely clean and free of wax) with lard and inserted a 2cmx2cmx1cm piece of polypore in it, it burned very well indeed with a strong 2.5’’ to 3’’ flame for 46 minutes (indoors), after which flame died down to a tiny flicker and took another two minutes to completely extinguish, lard was used up but some polypore was still left. I was surprised at how strong the flame was. I did wonder if you had used dried polypore and thought it might not work with freshly picked, however my polypore was about 90 minutes old from picking and it worked fine. Thanks for the good post resulting in my afternoon entertainment.

This is my effort

 

[atlatlman]

thats great atlatlman, thanks for sharing. I had to have a play, had no polypore at hand so just been and got some from the local woods (plenty of the stuff by me), also having no beef fat I just used ‘lard’ instead (I know, impatient to have a go), I filled an empty tea-candle holder (completely clean and free of wax) with lard and inserted a 2cmx2cmx1cm piece of polypore in it, it burned very well indeed with a strong 2.5’’ to 3’’ flame for 46 minutes (indoors), after which flame died down to a tiny flicker and took another two minutes to completely extinguish, lard was used up but some polypore was still left. I was surprised at how strong the flame was. I did wonder if you had used dried polypore and thought it might not work with freshly picked, however my polypore was about 90 minutes old from picking and it worked fine. Thanks for the good post resulting in my afternoon entertainment.

This is my effort

Your welcome mate. Glad you had fun. My polypore was also fresh, if it had of been dried I don't think the wick would have sucked up the fat. I was also surprised at how bright it burned. It lit my kitchen right up.

 

[Baelfore]

This is a really interesting idea. Thanks!

Can I ask how you hollowed out the rock? I like the idea of having a very 'rustic' source of light for on the trail.

Ste

 

[atlatlman]

This is a really interesting idea. Thanks!

Can I ask how you hollowed out the rock? I like the idea of having a very 'rustic' source of light for on the trail.

Ste

Bashed and smoothed it out with a fist sized stone. Took about two hours.

 

[Baelfore]

cool. Thanks bud.

ste

 

[Joonsy]

just for a laugh i used three polypore wicks together instead of one and tried to boil some water with it, placed the polypore in an esbit stove and used an msr pot to boil a swedish folding mug full (200ml), it boiled water okay but took 11 minutes and 30 seconds.

 

[atlatlman]

just for a laugh i used three polypore wicks together instead of one and tried to boil some water with it, placed the polypore in an esbit stove and used an msr pot to boil a swedish folding mug full (200ml), it boiled water okay but took 11 minutes and 30 seconds.

11 minutes, that's not too bad.

 

[atlatlman]

Don't forget the wizards hat shaped wick for easy lighting. I burnt my thumb a couple of times lighting a pyramid shaped one.

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[milius2]

Don't forget the wizards hat shaped wick for easy lighting. I burnt my thumb a couple of times lighting a pyramid shaped one.

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that's cool!