Woomf Bottle (a.k.a Fun With Fire)

This is a simple fun and (relatively) safe way to create some really neat fire effects, all you need is the basic materials no construction necessary.

get all the goodies:

Basic Materials:
1 Gallon Glass Jar
Alcohol
Matches

Aeration Materials:
a long straw (from 7-11) OR
some plastic tubing
Hairdryer/funnel/plastic tubing OR
Bellows

the hardest thing to get will be the glass jar. they don't make things like they used to and most things come in plastic. my jar had white vinegar in it and is at least 15years old and probably closer to 25 or 30 years old. Check your grocery store, check the recycling bin, check your grandmothers pantry your bound to turn one up somewhere.

alcohol is easy you can pick up a bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol for about $2

you need at least one aeration tool if you don't want to wait a long time between "firings"

once you have all your stuff its pretty easy to use.

take your alcohol and put 1-5ml in the bottle. a graduated medicine dropper works great for this but if you don't have one just use about 1-3 cap fulls. don't add too much the air/fuel mixture is very important, too much and the alcohol fumes will extinguish your match!

roll the bottle in your hands, the idea is to coat and spread the alcohol around the sides of the bottle.

light a match, lean back and drop it in. WOOMF!

if your mixture was good it should look somthing like the picture and you should get the classic sound that gives the bottle its name. :)

i recommend doing this in a dark room so you can really see the flames. the bathroom is usually a good place, there's little to burn, many bathrooms have no windows, and you can use the exhaust fan to clear out the fumes from the alcohol.

now that you have lit the Bottle you need to aerate the bottle. the cheapest method is to get a long straw (7-11 is a good place for these, get the soda straw not the slurpee straw) put the first 2-3 inches into the bottle aimed at the wall. blow hard, you want to drive the air alw the way to the bottom. about 3 lung fulls will be enough for another run.

other options are plastic tubing you can put it all the way tot he bottom and keep your head farther away from the opening (one face full of those fumes and you will be glad to be farther away)

if you have a hair dryer and a funnel you can hook the tubing to the funnel and hold the funnel to the hair dryer, this will be much easier than blowing.

the best thing i ever found was a bellows for an inflatable mattress. it had good volume a long tube and i could count the pumps for consistent aeration.

experiment with different mixtures. sometimes you can get a real slow burn over several seconds, the fire boiling down tot he bottom. other times the whole thing can go up in a flash and be very loud

Please Be Careful:
as long as you don't do anything stupid this is fairly safe. be careful of the bottle getting hot, the bottom and sides will stay cool after repeated runs but the upper part of the jar will get toasty if you do many consecutive lightings.

also remember to keep your alcohol safely covered and away when you light the match.

Never stand directly over the bottle. flames can shoot out a very long way you could get a face full of blue flame or worse, once i had a violent mix and it spat the glowing match back out of the bottle

Alternate fuels: obviously there are a lot of things you could put in the jar but i recommend sticking to alcohol, its flammable without being explosive it also burns very clean and is safe to handle, use other fuels at your own risk.

I accept no responsibility if you burn your house down or hurt yourself or your parents ground you or whatever.