Fire In A Can # 7, and lots of feeder briquettes

[Guest]

Or maybe its Fire In A Can #8, I’ve lost count.

I want to make a fresh supply of custom feeder briquettes for a couple friend’s FICA’s, and some for myself. And if I am melting wax I might as well make another wax-filled pot; I need a wedding gift for a not-so-young anymore fellow who started paddling with us 30 years ago as a toddler. It’s that or a blender.

Goodwill had the perfect $3 pot, 7” wide x 4 ½” deep. Well, not perfect, the handle needed to disappear for easy FICA storage, along with some feeder wax, in a stuff bag.

P4040003 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P4040005 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

4 ½” deep pot; I want the cardboard wick about 3” tall, so there is an inch+ of a windscreen lip, and melted wax won’t spill over the sides if slightly tilted. Repeating a previous caution: do not try to shuffle a FICA full of melted wax to a more level location using your boot toe. Trust me.

Some corrugated cardboard, cut to 3 ¼” tall. Coiled up and inserted in the pot, with a couple of “wicks” sanding taller for easy flick-of-a-Bic lighting. The wick spacing need not be a perfect spiral, a rugged 1” +/- inch or so spacing between wick segments works fine. For larger flames it is important that some of the wick be near the side of the pot, so the metal container edge heats up.

P4040007 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Cardboard wick prepped, it was time to look at my wax supply. It has been a while, and I know I have a variety of saved and sent waxes (and additives) stashed in the shop.

Slabs of virgin 145F melt point wax from Candlewic, enough for the first pour in the pot (the wax soaks into the cardboard wick and settles, needing a topping off or two. I want pure unscented virgin wax for the pot; the scented or funky flamed wax feeder briquettes are not always wanted/needed and will burn off after fed to the flames.

P4040013 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Scented candle stubs from the missus. I peeled all the labels off the bottoms. “Rustic Woodlands”, “Citrus Cilantro”, “Blue Hydrangeas” and lots of “Holiday Forest” scents. All melted together that should be a delightful “Blue Holiday Cilantro Woodlands”; only a true candle connoisseur could appreciate that splendid terroir, with faint notes of guest bathroom.

P4040010 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I found a second box of those fattie stubs hidden away as I dug out wax boxes and implements, and 20+ thick religious candles that may or may not have been blessed by the Pope, or stolen from the Shrine at Lourdes (mailed anomalously to my home some years ago; I still think it was Glenn MacG).

P4050017 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And a whole box of Funky Flames powder, this version called “Magical Flames”. Those are great trippy fun when a briquette suddenly produces purple, green, orange (so I’m told) flames. Should be plenty of magical flame powder to dispense on half filled briquettes and then top fill for a funky flame Tootsie Pop center.

P4040015 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Time to melt some wax.

Four 6” x 3” x 1 ½” thick slabs of Candlewic wax filled the pot more than half way full; when that has started to set up/droop down I’ll add some additional cardboard spaces and taller standing wick lighters.

Meanwhile, a three chunk pot of the same virgin Candlewick wax melted to make some scentless briquettes. I am curious about how the various briquette molds release the wax. I know the pipette tip boxes need a spritz of silicon spray to release, and probably the metal muffin tin as well. Ice cube trays too, the silicon muffin tin should release on its own.

Silicon sprayed and wax poured. OK, there was a lot more wax needed to fill all those even to the halfway point. Time to melt some Our Lady of Lourdes wax to finish off this batch of unscented briquettes.

P4050021 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I don’t need the floating wicks from those blessed candles. A cheap strainer scoops them out. (Also old match heads and gunk from home candle stubs)

P4050022 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Other tools: Thick wax fouled gloves reserved for just this, a poker stick to mush down the wax as it melts and a plastic coffee can; same one for years now, I pour the melted wax from the pot into that coffee can, and use that for easier to hold can for directed pours into the pot or molds.

P4060054 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Those clean wax molds were filled only half way for a reason. It occurred to me that it is much easier to simply to saw or break off chunks from a 10lb slab of Candlewick for virgin, no-funny-business wax, and save the fancier molded briquettes for making more, eh, flavorful stuff.

So I loaded all of those half filled molds with a spoonful of funky flame colors before topping off with additional clean wax.

P4050025 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P4050027 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P4050028 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Those should provide plenty of trippy fun flames to stare at the fire, and I still have half the Magic Flames powder unused for a second batch of special feeder briquettes.

P4050035 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P4050037 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

By the time the feeder briquettes were top filled and hardening the pot of virgin wax in the FIAC had drooped down/sucked in enough for a refill. By tomorrow morning that pot will have sucked a lot of wax into the cardboard wick, leaving deep wax craters that need yet another refill.

P4050040 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

 

[Guest]

Another day, a little more wax melting. Or a lot more wax melting; I might as well use up all of the sundry candle stubs I have saved up while I have the stove, molds and tools out.

The wax in the FIAC pot, filled just below the top of the wick last night, has subsided and drooped inch deep cavities as the wax slowly saturated into the cardboard wick overnight.

P4050042 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I was a little overgenerous in refilling the pot with virgin wax on the final pour, and covered some of the wick coils. Once it has been lit for the first time that excess will burn off and the full wick will be exposed to flame on.

P4050046 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Never-before lit FICA’s are slower to get started, once they have been lit and put out, and later relit with a pre-charred wick, they go gangbusters fully engulfed in seconds. Love that quick-flame action.

Better than that though, putting the lid over a flaming FIAC and having the firelight snap out instantly, pupils constricted in the suddenly inky dark, is just wicked cool. No flashlights, just sit and watch your night vision slowly return. Spooky.

Time to see which of the briquette molds poured yesterday most easily release the feeder bricks. My thanks to Boatman, Cruiser and Recped for the mold ideas.

I have a small muffin tin that I used. The plastic egg cartons popped in the freezer might be possible.
Jim

Recped has the same idea I did .... how about ice cube trays, you buy those in just about any size, shape etc and I suspect they wouldn't be expensive

All of those, plus my usual pipette tip boxes, worked well to varying degrees. I hit all of the molds (except the silicon muffin tin) with a lick of silicon spray, which I know helps in cooled wax removal.

I put the Walmart ice cube trays in the freezer the next morning for a couple hours and discovered why those trays were so cheap; I broke one twisting it to snap out the cubes. It’s almost like they weren’t made to be filled with hot wax and then frozen. I should write a review.

P4050048 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The ice cube tray briquettes are on the small size, especially the ones I under filled. Best for a very small FIAC pot, or frequent feedings, which could be group feed the fire fun with the funky flames additive.

The muffin tin molds are perfect for most FICA pots. The silicon muffin tin was pliable enough to simply push the briquettes out. I was concerned about getting the briquettes out of the thick, unbendable metal Goodwill muffin tin, and thought I might have to turn it upside down and heat it with a touch. Eh, when I turned it upside down the wax briquettes simply fell out on their own.

I like the muffin tins for briquette size and release ease; another thankee to the good folks on this board for the ideas.

The pipette tip box bricks are good only for the big roasting pans and stock pot versions, lest they overfill with wax and snuff out the flaming wick. I often chop them in half, depending. Those pipette tip boxes have been used many times over as wax molds and work very well with a spritz of silicon spray, just bend and press upside down and the rectangle of wax falls out.

(Sidebar: If you know anyone who works in a Microbiology lab those hinged, snap closed pipette tip boxes are awesome for small parts shop storage. And they most often go in the freaking trash)

Emptied of wax those molds were ready for round two of wax briquette making, using whatever wax I had left, including all of the fattie scented candle stubs from home, including some with wax poured over failed ice cubes with Magic Flames (a spoonful of Magic was too much powder in some cubes).

P4050045 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Those fat scented candle stubs from the Missus are a different breed of wax, with a different melt point than the virgin 145F Candlewick stuff, and behave differently when pour in a mold. Even in a shallow muffin tin that scented candle stub wax developed deep craters. It would suck to pour that over a thirsty cardboard wick and repeatedly find Vredefort deep craters. Use good wax for the FIAC pot itself.

P4060056 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The scented candle stub wax poured over the failed funky flame ice cubes in pipette tip boxes sports a peculiar bulge.

P4060059 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

B-cups and bulges, I’m ready for a Tinder profile.

 

[alsg]

Walter White's got nothing on you.

 

[Guest]

Final Weights

FIAC pot #7 weighs in at 5lb 4oz with lid.

Wax feeder briquette weights:

24 ice cube briquettes, 1lb 7oz. One ounce wax briquettes are not worth the effort unless it is a teeny tiny FIAC pot.

P4050033 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

48 muffin tin briquettes, 7lbs 8oz total, averaged out at 5oz wax each +/-.

Oddly the 24 virgin wax briquettes weigh a full pound more than the 24 scented candle stub ones. Those (Pier 1) scented candles are a very different type of wax. I really like those muffin tins as wax molds, 5oz is an ideal size for most feeder refills.

P4060063 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

18 pipette box bricks, 9lbs even. Half pound bricks are too big for FIAC #7, but there are a couple of large roasting pan FIAC’s that can take a half pound brick refill without drowning in wax. Chopped in half those bricks are fine for most refills, and store more compactly.

P4060061 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

That’s a lot of feeder wax in various sizes and flavors*, but I wanted enough for myself and a few friends.

As luck would have it friend Jane of FIAC #4, “Big Enough for a Cross-Country Trip” stock pot, stopped by as I was putting the briquettes away and took home a bag of various Magic Flame briquettes. She was especially attracted to the Heisenberg Blue Sky briquettes, so I know what she’s getting for her birthday.

*Crapola. I forgot to make any with Citronella oil added. I need to rewick and refill Joel’s burned out 2014 sea kayak sized FIAC. I will not forget some Citronella oil briquettes next wax melt.

All told that used up almost 28lbs of wax. A full 10lb slab of 145F melt-point Candlewick wax and a couple leftover chunks to make the pot and a round of unscented feeders.

A couple dozen incanted-over candles (still oddly quite long, it must have been a short spell of mumbo-jumbo), and a dozen+ fat scented stubs from the missus candle fetish. I do like that she saves those for me. Those combined leftovers accounted for a lot of the wax, at least 15lbs worth. Definitely worth saving every home candle stub, or sticking around after Shabbat.

Virgin wax slabs
https://www.candlewic.com/

FWIW, one of the first FIAC’s I made. The spiral cardboard wick is a too close together; it throws a big flame when it gets going and the edge of the pot is sizzling wax. It eats more wax than necessary; having the spiral wick further apart uses less wax and still throws decent light and heat.

That one is fun when I want an instant warming fire midday, in camp or away. Or for a short solo spell around flames before turning in for the night, both without concerns about leaving a fire or hot coals going (lid on, it’s out). It’s a LNT fire and has been OK’ed in places where no open fires are permitted (see origination with coastal paddlers and Maine sea kayak guides), and in places where a fire pan is required as well.

That little round roaster pan, 3” tall by 9” wide is my favorite FIAC pot. Weighs in at 5lbs IIRC.

P4050053 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

7” tall stock pot FIAC with better wick spacing, made almost entirely out of leftover stubs and Dollar Store Jesus candles. 12 lbs and stupidly tall. Unnecesary, I never want to burn the wick down anywhere near that deep before adding a feeder. That pot is 7” deep, so there is a lot of wax to carry around I’ll hopefully never burn down to.

P4060065 by Mike McCrea, on Flick

A shallower pot, 3 to max 5 inches tall, with an ample supply of feeder wax to keep things topped off, is better as a FIAC receptacle.