I Can Do It Too- Emergency Lighting

Emergency Lighting is the first in my series

I Can Do It Too

I have been reading various issues of The Backwoodsman

which has both feature articles in addition to handy

tips on how to do things and quick recipes.  As I am 

reading I keep thinking I can do it too! 

So I am going to try.

The issue where you can find this tutorial

Items Needed

A cat food tin or similar small round tin such as a tuna can

An aluminum soda can

a 3/4 x 5 inch strip of blue jeans

Cooking oil such as vegetable oil

tin snips or scissors 

something to make flame (a lighter/matches)

I started with an empty tin of cat food

(the cats benefited greatly from this experiment)

Cut the center out of a soda can.

I used tin snips but you could use scissors as the article

mentions; however, scissors can be dulled by the metal

or since we had tin snips, I used them as well as a leather

glove just so I did't poke my fingers as I was cutting it.

Trim it to fit inside the tin.  My tin was smaller than

the one used in the magazine so I had to trim accordingly. 

Bend the metal so it forms an upside down "V"

Snip a hole in the center to thread the blue jeans through.

I think I should have made a smaller hole but it worked.

Thread the strip of blue jeans through the hole.

Adjust so about 1/8 inch is sticking up. 

This photo shows the jeans before adjustment 

to make it easier to view.

Fill the tin with oil but not to the very top.

Allow the jeans to wick up the oil.  The article says you

can add a drop or two to the top of the jean wick to 

help matters along.  Once it has saturated the jeans, 

light the blue jean wick and watch it flame.

For caution, I did this outside and sat it in our fire pit 

where it would stay out of the breeze and if spilled,

it would be safe.  (Safety First!!)

The article said their candle burned for six hours

without using hardly any fuel.  I blew mine out after 

three hours since I had to leave and as mentioned,

I could not tell that anything had been used up.

It smoked a little at first which was either from

the oil or the length of the wick, or both.  I 

would be cautious if using it indoors since it is oil

and can spill but it certainly put out light for a long while.

I have a few other experiments to try, some from

Backwoodsman and other sources.  My husband tells me

this is Kathy's Summer of Learning while he shows me

how to work on things around the house that he generally

takes care of such as minor tractor repair, the septic system,

household appliances, etc.