Fuel and Equipment Tests
One question that a lot of twirlers ask is which fuel to use. Another is what wick design works best. Although I've been told that tube-core wicks burn longer than interleave wicks, I had never tested that assertion. So I decided to do something about it. I rigged up Bessie with two tube-core wicks and two interleave wicks. One each was soaked in kerosene, one each in Coleman gas. I repeated the test twice, starting with unused wicks. Here are my results
Table 1: Times for different fuels and wicks (min:sec)
| Kerosone | Coleman Gas | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tube-core | Interleave | Tube-core | Interleave | |
| Test 1 | 6:30 | 8:50 | 4:00 | 5:00 |
| Test 2 | 5:30 | 8:30 | 4:00 | 4:30 |
A few comments on these results:
- It is clear that tube-core wicks do not actually burn longer than interleave wicks. They have a significantly shorter burn. However, during that time they are at their "sweet spot" in the burn, their blaze is somewhat more prominent.
- Coleman gas gives a much shorter burn than kerosene, but it ignites much more easily--the Coleman-soaked wicks ignited fully the moment I brought my lighter near; the kerosene-soaked wicks were stubborn about catching fire. After about 30 seconds, the kerosene-soaked wicks had a good blaze going. Basically, Coleman gas seems to be more volatile--that means it ignites more readily, but burns off more quickly.
- I have heard of some firedancers using a cocktail of fuels, and based on my results, it seems that it might be a good idea to use a mixture that is almost all kerosene (low-octane) with some Coleman gas (high-octane) added in to promote a fast catch.
I will run through a few more iterations of this test in the future.
Test pictures
Ready to start test 1
Good blazes on all wicks here.
Coleman-soaked tube-core wick starting to die down
Ready to start test 2
Again, Coleman-soaked tube-core wick starting to die down
Both Coleman-soaked wicks basically dead; Kerosene-soaked tube-core wick fading.