View Full Version : Making Torches
Abbe Osram
17-11-2004, 11:27
I would like to make long burning torches myself.
Has anyone a link or knowledge how to start the project?
thanks
cheers
Abbe
:chill:
tenbears10
17-11-2004, 11:48
If these (http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php) guys don't know then no one will.
Bill
what do you mean by "log burning tourch"... do you mean on like this?
http://www.angelfire.com/wizard/estel_photos/aragorn_throwin_torch_anim.gif
Abbe Osram
17-11-2004, 13:42
Hi guys,
sorry it might be my bad english, I am not from the UK.
tomtom ; I could not see your picture in my browser.
What I am looking for is a wooden stick with fire on top, like they used in medieval times to light up their castles and houses. I would like to know if I could make them myself with the material available in the forest.
cheers
Abbe
Thats what i thought.. (it was a good picture of aragorn from lord of the rights with is one :roll:)
ray made one in his last serise.. i believe it was useing birch bark wraped around a stick.. though he might have gotten oil from somewhere too and soaked it in that... i cant remember!
tenbears10
17-11-2004, 13:55
Whoops I got the wrong end of the wrong stick then. I thought you meant a modified torch. Oh well the CPF forum is interesting anyway. Sorry again.
Bill
Abbe Osram
17-11-2004, 13:55
Thats what i thought.. (it was a good picture of aragorn from lord of the rights with is one :roll:)
ray made one in his last serise.. i believe it was useing birch bark wraped around a stick.. though he might have gotten oil from somewhere too and soaked it in that... i cant remember!
cool,
birch bark we have a hell of a lot up here in the north, would be interesting to know how he kept it going for an extended period of time otherwise it will die very soon, and I am running around with the headlight again. I believe too he must have soaked it into something.
//Abbe
ray made one in his last serise.. i believe it was useing birch bark wraped around a stick.. though he might have gotten oil from somewhere too and soaked it in that... i cant remember!
TomTom. It could have been russian oil. :?: Iv seen him make that from birch bark, on TV. He also made one from pine tree resin wedged in the top of a split stick wth smaller branches through it to act as wicks.
Be carfull carrying with naked flames though a forest, im sure you will!!
Blast, can't find the relevant web pages so here goes from memory.
Get a large number of straight twigs - broom or birch spring to mind. Form them into a really tight bundle wider at one end than the other. Bind tightly.
Hack out a depression in the centre of the wide end, fill with pine resin, pitch, wax etc and light. The main use for the thick bundle is to stop burning crap running down your hands.
Don't tip them up when they're burning - molten resin sticks to anything and doesn't go out that easily.
Realgar
i think he also boiled more birch bark and extracted the oil and the soaked the bark in it so it was saturated... cant anyone remember that one better then me.. it was the show when he did cave painting and needed to light the cave!!
Abbe Osram
17-11-2004, 17:49
Hi Guys,
thanks for all the tips thats a lot more than I know,
Question left; when I build the birch bark how do I extract the oil? How is the procedure working?
thanks
abbe
:chill:
Bye the way we got minus 20 degrees now outside my house, the winter is here!
To put it in as short a way as possible, pack a metal tin with birch bark ( twigs will do ), put the lid on, knock a hole in the lid. Take another tin - without a lid, bury it with the rim just above soil level. Put the bark-tin upside down over the buried tin, seal around the two with mud/clay. Build a fire on top, light it, Wait for the fire to go out and collect what's in the bottom tin. You can do similar with any resin rich wood to obtain a form of pitch.
Realgar
Well said realgar. Seems clear to me... but i can kinda remember ray doing it in belarus- an old show.
That belarus show is a classic
BTW thanks for the other forum link ( the one for modding torches )
Abbe Osram
17-11-2004, 19:31
To put it in as short a way as possible, pack a metal tin with birch bark ( twigs will do ), put the lid on, knock a hole in the lid. Take another tin - without a lid, bury it with the rim just above soil level. Put the bark-tin upside down over the buried tin, seal around the two with mud/clay. Build a fire on top, light it, Wait for the fire to go out and collect what's in the bottom tin. You can do similar with any resin rich wood to obtain a form of pitch.
Realgar
thanks a lot now its very clear to me, have to try it out.
:You_Rock_
cheers
Abbe
Hi there,
I'm sure that Ray was using some kind of sap in a split stick to make the torch
Will
Hi there,
I'm sure that Ray was using some kind of sap in a split stick to make the torch
Will
It was Pine resin.
Frogo
Tantalus
26-11-2004, 23:24
cuts in pine trees will give resin
which you can collect, it is liquid when it comes out and dries over days or weeks
some kind of cup under the cut will collect the sap
i reckon emptying them once a week(?) should do fine in the summer
course if you havent got any by the time everything freezes in the winter you are a bit stuck
Tant
Abbe Osram
26-11-2004, 23:31
Its never to late learning new skills, next summer I will collect some.
thanks guys for all the info!
//Abbe
Tantalus
27-11-2004, 00:05
abbe you may not be too late
pine trees dont freeze as quickly as water
though you will get less resin when it is cold
also look for broken branches and deer damage
you should be able to get a fair bit of stuff that leaked earlier in the year
Tant
Abbe... did you get this to work?
did we decide in the end that ray used pine resin.. does anyone have it on tape and can watch it and give us instructions..???
Ok, for another traditional, but less 'do it in the woods' version...
Take a load of old rags and cut into strips (if you can get old 3 inch bandages, these are very easy to use and the perfect size).
Wrap cloth around end of stick.
Soak end of torch in pitch/tallow & oil mix) for a few days.
Leave to cure overnight.
Light.
Can be a bit smoky, but it adds to the feel.
bambodoggy
20-01-2005, 12:14
As luck would have it...I happened to watch it on DVD the other day and yes he does use pine resin and a few pine needles (I'm guessing to help act as a wick)...
hope that helps....
thanks guys..
Jak for the ignorant could you explain what "pitch/tallow & oil mix" is?
thanks guys..
Jak for the ignorant could you explain what "pitch/tallow & oil mix" is?
Sorry.
Pitch - either pitch-pine resin harvested from the trees or bought from jewellers suppliers.
Tallow - old form of wax used for candle making. STINKS to high heaven but I use a vegetable tallow from Japan similar to that used for centuries, harvested from the Tallow Tree. The tallow is VERY hard so if you mix it with a light oil such as cooking oil, you get a semi-liquid mixture that burns like animal tallow but a lot less aromatic...using shea (peanut/groundnut) oil gives a pleasant perfume to the smoke.
(I make candles, including historical ones for re-enactors etc, so I've had to do a LOT of research into this...)
Abbe, look for what we in sweden call "töre" it´s like maya sticks it will burn a long time and make good torches and take no time to make.
Look in "sumpmark" or on a "mosse" and there you will find pine tree´s where all the barks has fallen of and the tree´s are all grey. Just push them down and collect or find an old pine "stubbe" that is all rotten and that you kick uo from the ground and then cut away all the rotten part and you will only have "töre " left. If you scrape som of it you can even light it with a firesteel.
Sorry about the swedish word, but I don´t know the english ones for them but I hope Abbe understands.
Abbe Osram
20-01-2005, 14:00
Abbe, look for what we in sweden call "töre" it´s like maya sticks it will burn a long time and make good torches and take no time to make.
Look in "sumpmark" or on a "mosse" and there you will find pine tree´s where all the barks has fallen of and the tree´s are all grey. Just push them down and collect or find an old pine "stubbe" that is all rotten and that you kick uo from the ground and then cut away all the rotten part and you will only have "töre " left. If you scrape som of it you can even light it with a firesteel.
Sorry about the swedish word, but I don´t know the english ones for them but I hope Abbe understands.
thanks for the tip mate, and yes I understood the words.
cheers
Abbe
DOC-CANADA
20-01-2005, 16:32
cool,
birch bark we have a hell of a lot up here in the north, would be interesting to know how he kept it going for an extended period of time otherwise it will die very soon, and I am running around with the headlight again. I believe too he must have soaked it into something.
//Abbe
If you have a lot of Birch bark available, use it as is. Take a sheet, roll it up into a tight cylinder shape and secure it along its length with bits of cordage. A 18 " torch burns for 15-20 minutes. If you need an hour's worth of light, 4 torches will do it. (When the torch starts getting short, stick it in a split stick.
These torches were called, by some, 'trail torches', presumably because they could be used in the dark to see the trail.
Another type of Birch bark torch, used by First Nations people here in North America, was a 'fishing torch'. Once again, it was just a sheet of Birch bark, this time, folded and stuck in the split of a stick. This whole assembly was then stuck in the gunwales of the canoe sticking over the side of the canoe. They did this because there are always burning bits coming off of the torch and they didn't want to end up with a 'Birch bark CANOE TORCH' :lol:
The 'fishing torch' did a couple of things. First, the flames attracted fish to the canoe and, also, provided enough light for the fisherman to see and be able to accurately throw his spear.
When the bark burned down, another piece could easily be inserted into the split stick or another assembly (stick and bark) could be used.
Cherry (Prunus spp.) bark can also be used as torch material as in the first example (trail torches). Ironically, I learned about using Cherry bark from a Ray Mears book. Works well, just a little harder to light.
Hope this helps,
:-P DOC-CANADA :-P
Walkabout
22-01-2005, 16:35
When you are using cherry bark for the torch, put it in the stick so the top and bottom of the bark (as you look at it on the tree) are sticking out of the sides of the split. Otherwise it curls round and puts itself out. The best bark to use is from dead branches that have fallen and rotted within the bark.
I don't really know about flaming torches; these are really just moveable candles. Patrick Cave-Brown did a fair bit of experimental archaeology on lighting. He ended up using rushes, (the *Not Bullrush* but known as, ones) stripping most of the outer skin off but leaving enough on to act as a spine, and soaking the wick in fat to act like a candle. The best light, and the one that smelled best too, was sheep suet...that's the hard fat that's found around the kidneys, stip the caul off and crush the waxy fat. Haven't tried any other beast's suet, but I can't see why it wouldn't work. A 2' length lit a room for about 25 minutes.
I made a torch from a roll of birch bark stuffed with these rushes and tied tightly around a dead branch. I poured in melted old wax and the whole thing burned for about 45 minutes. By the end it was dangerous to move it though.
Another attempt was clay mouded into a cup in the 3 way fork of an apple branch (it's what I had) lined with moss and beeswax chunks dropped into. I used fomes for the wick. Sort of worked...I could see it working with resin too.
If you're burning cherry be careful, the bark contains cyanide...I fumigated the kitchen boiling some up for dyeing :roll:
Toddy
Great idea Toddy. That's a new one on me.
(Used to walk around with flaming torches all the time as a kid! Those were the days... :wink:)
Uhuh, Wrapped with polythene that went "zip, zip" as it dropped it's little fiery bombs everywhere :roll: Oh well, we grow up.......and we'd give the kids hell if we saw them playing with things like that now. :?: Just as well, too, that turnips didn't burn very well, wasn't it?
Toddy