Parafin Burner Success and Improvised Heat Gun Fail

For my upcoming project on straightening PET strips I was needed a heat gun, which I currently don't have. Although, I have a couple of different ideas on accomplishing this task, I decided to eperiment on making simple low-tec heat gun substitution from available junk, and this was my first attempt. As you can guess from the title, it failed, and if you want to see the results of my successfull attempt/ go to my next instructable.

Improvised Heat Gun Substitution Success

Also, I'm going to show here, how to make simple parafin/wax burner/stove, so this particular i'ble won't be all that useless too.

So, the basic idea I had, was to use some fuel burning source of heat, which would be turned into concentrated and localized stream of hot air by means of old metall funnel. I was looking for something semi-portable, compact and suitable for using in a workshop.

Step 1:

And the first thing I was needed to make was a fuel burning device of some sort. I decided to make parafine burner, since I thought it won't produce any smoke soot... because candles don't do that.

I was wrong. But more abot that later.

For making the burner I used this tutorial from Самоделки ВитманаYouTube channel:

And the first thing I did is find a suitable tin can.

Step 2:

It so happened to be, that I've already had a nice roll of corrugated cardboard, so I've cut out a piece roughly 5mm taller than the can and inserted it in it.

Step 3:

Then I reached out to my dead candless collection and melted a bunch of parafin. I used that hollow metall plate thing to dissipate fire from the gas stove to prevent parafin from burning. You can use water bath instead.

After the parafin has melted I poured it into the can with the cardboard, trying spread it evenly while filling the can.

And this is how the burner was made. Of course, you should left it to cool down and than use a match or a lighter to light it up.

Step 4:

And I've already had suitable metal funnel for the job, so all I had to do is to fire up the burner and place the funnel abow it on some support/ that allows the airflow.

Step 5:

... and smoke and soot went all over the place. And yes, parafin does it. It's just not that notacible with small candles.

The other problem I had, was that the torch of flame was too tall and was exiting from the top of the funnel. To solve both problems I took a mesh and that many holes metal detai from some old broken tea making thing and installed it within the funnel.

Step 6:

The funnel upgrade worked for cutting off the flame and capturing the soot (well untill the mesh would cloag up), but I still had a plenty of smoke comming out.

At this point I realized that to make the whole thing work I have to use some no smoke producing burner, and if you want to know, what I ended up using successfully, you have to go and visit my upcoming instructable.

...It was alcohol burner.

Step 7:

One more thing I want to add, is that if you're going to put a parafin burner, like this on fire, make sure you have a suitable appliance to put it off, because you, probably, won't be able to blow it out with your lungs. I had to inprovese, but it's good to have some bigger can to put on the burner to cut the air.

Anyway, this was an experiment and I shared it with you. This is it for this instructable, hope it was usefull or interesting for somebody, thanks for your attention and have a nice 2007.

Also, I have a Patreon page, so, if you vant to se me doing more of random stuff, you can support me there.