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Step 5How to do it properly...
Drill a nice, circular hole in the lid of your jar.
Splash a few millilitres of meths into the bottom of the jar and screw the lid on tightly.
Put your thumb over the hole and shake. This coats the jar with fuel and adds vapour to the air to aid ignition. If everything is going well, the jar will make a sort of sucking noise when you take your thumb off the hole.
Stand the jar of a heat-proof surface (it will get really hot), wipe spilled meths off the top and light it.
If the jet works, and you want to use it more than once, don't let it run too long. Extinguish it by dropping a spare lid over the hole of the jet - let it cool before you pick it up!
If you get one running, add a video to the comments. One day, in the distant future, I'll make one out of metal and add a fuel-feed. I wonder how loud it will be...
Splash a few millilitres of meths into the bottom of the jar and screw the lid on tightly.
Put your thumb over the hole and shake. This coats the jar with fuel and adds vapour to the air to aid ignition. If everything is going well, the jar will make a sort of sucking noise when you take your thumb off the hole.
Stand the jar of a heat-proof surface (it will get really hot), wipe spilled meths off the top and light it.
If the jet works, and you want to use it more than once, don't let it run too long. Extinguish it by dropping a spare lid over the hole of the jet - let it cool before you pick it up!
If you get one running, add a video to the comments. One day, in the distant future, I'll make one out of metal and add a fuel-feed. I wonder how loud it will be...
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If you're in the states, apparently "yellow Heet" is a useful fuel.
I don't live in Canada but I have friends who do...I will ask.
You should order online:)
I might try it with a treacle tin - that way maybe it won't explode in a shower of broken glass when it gets hot!
I have seen video of a metal version running on vegetable oil, which the makers injected via a ring around the vent-hole (the heat there made the oil start to evaporate and made it much more flammable).
A similar device to this is the Reynst Pot or Reynst Cumbustor - it is designed to burn liquids 9and even powders) really hot, rather than producing thrust.
Each part of thAt R-R-R-R-R-R is a pulsed jet of hot gases shooting out of the jar, colling slightly and sucking back in to refresh the oxygen and continue the burn.
OK, so this one doesn't fly, but it is exactly the same technology as the jets that dropped V1 bombs on London during WWII.
Additionally, the temperature is much higher than a normal methanol flame. that's why the glass gives way - it simply can't take the heat. The orange flashes are the glass starting to burn.