Rain fire from the sky with this mockery of a Chinese balloon!
This instructable requires:
- A couple of meters of incredibly thin wire.
- Cheapest trash bag/bin bag liner you can find (these are the sort of bags bin men hate as they split if you look at them funny)
- A couple of balls of cotton wool
- Sellotape
- Methylated Spirits (Denatured alcohol)
- A match
- Cotton for a tether/anchor
"The story goes that in the 2nd century BC someone made an experimental hot-air balloon out of an empty eggshell. He emptied the egg white and yolk from a hole in the shell, and put a piece of burning wormwood inside the shell. As the air inside the shell was warmed, the eggshell was lifted by the wind and rose in the air."
"According to historical records the inventor of the hot-air balloon was Zhuge Liang (181-234) a noted politician and strategist of the Three Kingdoms Period"
Quote source: http://tinyurl.com/ykezu7n
I'm not a man who likes fussing around with tissue paper making beautiful flying masterpieces perhaps adorned with calligraphy. I'm a man who looks under the kitchen sink to find something to set fire to. Most of this stuff you'll find either under your sink or in your tool box.
WARNING
The balloons will rise gently in the air and if you don't hold on, they'll go a long, long way. We do these at our local scout troop grounds which is incidentally next to an airport and I suspect they could probably do a fair bit of damage if they come into contact with planes. The last set we did were visible for about three miles away before they plunged into the sea. A friend of mine whom happened to be on the beach at the time put two and two together and rang me shortly after saying "Have you been setting fire to bin bags and releasing them into the skies?"
Similarly if you're in a rural location apparently if these land in a field they can be ingested by livestock and the copper wire can damage their stomachs and throats - so be responsible and keep hold of them if you can.
Some people have said that they might even catch on buildings/trees/dried grass etc if released. Use your common sense, if you're in a very built up area don't release them.
Keep a bucket of water handy to put out the burner if you're not releasing them or it accidentally catches fire (always a risk)
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1: Getting the wire.
You need thin wire for this instructable because it's all about weight! For this instructable I used a galvanised steel wire about 1mm thick - but thinner is better. But you can also find thin wire in a multitude of places - speakers, transformers, eBay etc. You may need to experiment but you're looking for .3mm or less thick. You can use wire strippers for this, but I'd steer clear of anything other than plastic coated wire because it's a real pain to remove the coatings.
Visit Our Store »
Go Pro Today »
If you do it wrong, the bag does catch fire.
1. Load a backyard, child's chemical rocket with "space blankets" instead of parachutes.
2. Launch normally.
3. After those super-thin foil coated plastic "blankets" deploy, time how long it takes for military jets to turn up investigating a very sudden radar reading.
We used to make something similar as kids that we called "UFOs" as they glowed an eerie purple color.
We used the super-thin wrapping bags that are placed over dry-cleaned clothes and we used "Sterno" canned heat for the heat source which gave off the purple glow which reflected like mad off of all the crinkles in the clear bag. We used drinking straws inserted into one another to form a "cross" for the bottom of the bag and to glue a jar lid (center of the cross) which held the sterno.
We set them off at night during the summer in the middle of the huge housing development where I grew up. Many a beer-filled parent sitting out on the patio and many a young camping-out crew were scared to death when seeing this purple demon drift over head. And yes, it is a small miracle we never set a house on fire.
www.theruralindependent.com/forum/index.php
Careful though as it may melt the bag.
:D
The number of confirmed cases is very low, but serious enough that the commercial supplier has redesigned their product to be wire-free.
Regarding the tether,
If you tied it to the bottom, it may have burned through.
If you tie it to the top, when you get to the end of the line, a tug should turn the balloon over and release the hot air.
I did put that!
"Similarly if you're in a rural location apparently if these land in a field they can be ingested by livestock and the copper wire can damage their stomachs and throats - so be responsible and keep hold of them if you can." (See the intro!)
A good point about the Anchor/tether though! I shall update!
When I was a teenager I made several of these using drycleaner bags. I didn't tether them.
The last one I made got about a hundred feet up and then a gust of wind caused the fire to melt a big hole in the side of the balloon. It then slowly descended and landed on the roof of a house a block away. The fire was still burning, with enough fuel to start that house on fire.
Fortunately, there was a ladder handy, so I was able to climb up and put out the fire. But it could have turned into a VERY BAD situation.
Normally, they will stay up until the fire runs out of fuel. Once the fire runs out, it will start to descend That's normally how it goes...
When things don't go so well, you could have fire raining down from the sky.
I really don't recommend trying this.
All my instructables are dangerous, I'm a serious risk to life and limb! :D
It's common sense - keep it tethered, keep an eye on it and if you can, keep hold of it. I didn't because I was videoing and I had absolutely no intention of actually letting it go. Simply tipping it up as per Kitemans comment will simply remove the hot air and a bucket of water nearby will put out the meths.
This is a fun, quick and simple project which I would encourage people to try, but children should be supervised!
Nice project, though, and thanks for the patch!
I like dolphins btw.