Fire from ice

[Ogri the trog]

Entirely possible,
as a post over on Paleoplanet discusses.....
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/21686

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[wingstoo]

I understand that John Wiseman tried it for the best part of a day "under field conditions" and succeeded in get a very cold wet arm but nothing else, it is, I guess, very dependent on where you are as to what type of ice you get.

 

[Oblio13]

The water I put outside in a bowl yesterday froze so cloudy that I don't think any light would shine through it. No matter, though, as it's also snowing hard and forecast to continue the rest of the day. Tomorrow before dawn I fly to St. Thomas, so it'll be at least a couple days before I can give this another try.

 

[Wallenstein]

The reason icicles and professional ice machines are so clear is that they freeze very small amounts of water over a period of time, in small layers.

Ice machines run water over cooling elements which allows a gradual buildup of ice and avoids clouding.

I'm not sure how this would work for the ice-lens purpose - possibly leave a garden hose running slowly overnight when it's cold, and direct the flow onto a suitable container?

Also found this:

"A technique used in most ice manufacturing plants that make large blocks of ice is to put a tube in the center of the container of water that is to be frozen. Through the tube they bubble a very low pressure stream of air. Before the tube becomes ice-bound, they remove it, and they pour or suction the water that is left in the center of the ice block away. All of the impurities -- dirt, dissolved air and minerals -- are forced into this water by the crystallizing ice. They fill the void with fresh water (or not) and continue freezing. The core of the block is clouded but the rest of the block is clear. If the core is not refilled and frozen, the entire block is clear. "

 

[rich59]

The water I put outside in a bowl yesterday froze so cloudy that I don't think any light would shine through it. No matter, though, as it's also snowing hard and forecast to continue the rest of the day. Tomorrow before dawn I fly to St. Thomas, so it'll be at least a couple days before I can give this another try.

You can get clear ice if you use water that has been well boiled first. This drives the air out.

 

[Galemys]

You can get clear ice if you use water that has been well boiled first. This drives the air out.

I tried this once at the lab where I work, but boiled water didn´t make any difference compared to non-boiled in my little experiment. Demineralized water and aqua dest also yielded ´cloudy´ ice when stuck in a minus 25 freezer. I guess the cooling rate was just too fast.

My experiment was too try and make good clear ice for another way of making fire with ice: In theory (well, in my head...) it is possible to make the tube of a fire piston out of ice. So I took a straight piece of dowel rod as a piston (with a wooden knob as handgrip but without a rubber ring or wound gasket), greased it with fat and stuck it in the fridge, in the middle of a cup filled with water, this time at home. The grease was put on to retract the piston out of the ice, leaving a perfect fitting bore.
My humble try-outs were just meant to see if I could create a visible flash of the heated compressed air, if this would work I could try it with some tinder (after drying out the bore with a piece of tissue). All my ´ice fire pistons´ up to the size of a drinking glass shattered under the force of the compressed air. This could be due to the ´cloudy´ ice but maybe I just need a bigger lump of ice to try this one out. I just know it can be done!

Cheers,

Tom

PS I was skating the frozen waters of Holland this weekend and the thought occurred that I could also drill a hole in a good ´black´ piece of ice to try the ´ice fire piston´ out. I didn´t take a drill or piston with me and off course now a thawing period has set in and all the ice is vanishing.
It should be great if it would work though, imagine a whole lake acting as your fire piston...

 

[Pict]

I found some really clear ice today out by the creek behind the house and made a pretty good lens. Unfortunately the sun became overcast so it's propped up waiting for possible sun tomorrow. It is very difficult to get it cleaned up optically but surprisingly easy to get it into the shape of a lens. Finding clear natural ice was no problem, it took me about a minute of searching. I used my SAK and heat from my fingers to shape and polish it.

Things I learned with my first attempt at this.

Clear ice was easy to find.
The small SAK blade works great to shape ice.
It takes a much larger chunk of ice than you think. If I try this again I will use a slab at least 6 inches across and 2 inches thick.
You must use gloves to prevent your hands from constantly melting it.
Getting it clear is no problem but getting it optically pure is very difficult.

Mac