03-23-11 – Me Love You Long Time!

U-Man, explain your steel wool on a wire burning thing. That looks way cool on photo.

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2007-10/burning-metal

Steel wool burns. Who knew?! It doesn’t burst into flame, but it certainly gets hot and glows and falls apart – especially when you whirl it around. I bought some fine (grade 0000) steel wool, bent a 4 foot length of copper wire around the middle, lit it with a lighter and swung it around. That’s it.

For the photographing part, I used two cameras. Since I have two dSLR’s, it makes it a bit more idiot proof to set up both for these long exposure shots. I used slightly different f-stops and ISO’s and one camera was set for 10 sec and the other for 15 sec. After framing and focusing on the site where I would be, I used shutter release cables and clicked them so that each camera would continue taking pics until I shut them off. Click on cameras…walk to the subject area…light steel wool…whirl around head until it goes out…shut off cameras and get gone.

I forgot to put my hood up during one shot and burned the top of my head. 🙁 Also, wear long sleeves. Burning pieces of metal fly all over the place.

U-Man, explain your steel wool on a wire burning thing. That looks way cool on photo.

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2007-10/burning-metal

Steel wool burns. Who knew?! It doesn’t burst into flame, but it certainly gets hot and glows and falls apart – especially when you whirl it around. I bought some fine (grade 0000) steel wool, bent a 4 foot length of copper wire around the middle, lit it with a lighter and swung it around. That’s it.

For the photographing part, I used two cameras. Since I have two dSLR’s, it makes it a bit more idiot proof to set up both for these long exposure shots. I used slightly different f-stops and ISO’s and one camera was set for 10 sec and the other for 15 sec. After framing and focusing on the site where I would be, I used shutter release cables and clicked them so that each camera would continue taking pics until I shut them off. Click on cameras…walk to the subject area…light steel wool…whirl around head until it goes out…shut off cameras and get gone.

I forgot to put my hood up during one shot and burned the top of my head. 🙁 Also, wear long sleeves. Burning pieces of metal fly all over the place.

I actually knew, but I thought it required an electrical current. Steel wool and a 9 volt battery is an awesome firestarter emergency setup.

You should buy some magnesium ribbon. It burns intensely white, almost too bright to do anything useful with in a photo, but it’s still pretty cool. I use it for a light source sometimes during really bad weather. Some day the Coast Guard is probably going to pull up on me thinking I’m trying to signal for help on a beach in the middle of the night. I use a butane blowtorch to light it off.

these two are lit by burning magnesium. The wind was about 60mph with gusts near 100.

Some b’s.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5465719617/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5130330602/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5130330532/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5005229570/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/4785040715/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/4785041149/

I suspect I may have chosen poorly for my final three this week….

I used to play with it in high school. We got it in chemistry lab. I had forgotten about it until a few years ago, when I found out one can buy it really cheap. 150 feet of that stuff for less than $15.

Where do you get it? Home Depot or some such hardware store?

here’s one place:

http://www.ecrater.com/p/8743522/magnesium-ribbon-mg-thermite-ignition-75

here’s one place:

http://www.ecrater.com/p/8743522/magnesium-ribbon-mg-thermite-ignition-75

I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble with this one.

Hey all you pyros, this mom is “listening.” Stay safe!