Fire from ice

[Forest fella]

Has anyone tried making fire from a ice Magnifying Glass yet,while we still have the snow.

[dangerpie]

Making fire from ice magnifying glass! Now thats cool! (wahey!)
I've never even heard of this being done I seem to be learning stuff every day on here!

Pete

[HillBill]

Is it even possible??

[Oblio13]

I've tried it several times, and have never even come close. Not a wisp of smoke or even a dark spot on the tinder. I think there's too much air in ice for it to transmit enough light. Maybe glacial ice would work better.

[Peter_t]

i saw it on mythbusters, it is posable but they had to use specialy manufactured clear ice used in ice sculptures so its not posable in the bush

pete

[IanM]

Water absorbs infra red wavelengths "http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html" (that is why the sky is blue) so I would be surprised that it would be possible to transmit enough energy through an ice lens or a condom of water to ignite fire.

Love to see it though as well as lighting a fire from moonlight!!

[John Fenna]

I have seen the condom full of water work - it was quick and easy!
It was not done by a "fire Guru" but by a mate of mine using a condom full of river water...I must try it myself sometime, when there is a good strong sun....

[gregorach]

If you can find clear enough ice, I believe it's do-able. The trick to getting clear ice is to freeze it slowly - I've certainly seen perfectly clear ice in my water butts.

[Oblio13]

If you can find clear enough ice, I believe it's do-able.

Try it and let us know how you do. I just looked through a few of the survival guides on my bookshelves. A few of them mention it, but the one I consider most complete and useful (USAF Search and Rescue Survival Training) does not.

I suspect that, like the infamous solar still, it's an often-repeated myth, and won't work except under perfect "laboratory conditions".

One of my pet peeves is survival authors who propound things they haven't actually tried, especially considering the subject. (As another example, I have a book with a photo of a figure-4 trap, and the trigger with the bait on it is OUTSIDE of the rock that's supposed to fall on the critter.)

[gregorach]

Hey, I said "do-able", not "practical".

[Oblio13]

Hey, I said "do-able", not "practical".

Give it a go anyway, be the first to post it on Youtube and you'll make bushcraft history.

[gregorach]

If we get some more cold weather, I might just have a crack at it if I can get a thick enough piece of clear ice. It's one I've fancied trying for a while.

[Toddy]

Would it not be worth a try to make a shaped lens in a bowl in the freezer? If you put it in on top of a bag of something like soup that is also being frozen, then it would freeze really slowly.

cheers,
Toddy

[Oblio13]

Would it not be worth a try to make a shaped lens in a bowl in the freezer? If you put it in on top of a bag of something like soup that is also being frozen, then it would freeze really slowly.

cheers,
Toddy

I'm trying that very thing right now.

Great minds think alike.

(So do the other kind.)

I'll try it at high noon tomorrow and post the results, if the solar deity smiles upon me.

[gregorach]

Tap water has far too much dissolved gas in it. I've heard that boiling it first helps, but I've never tried it. My freezer's far too small (and full) anyway...

[Toddy]

So the stale boiled water from last night's kettle would be fine if used in the morning ?

cheers,
Toddy

[gregorach]

I don't know. Give it a try - it's real science!

[gregorach]

Just been reading some articles on the subject by Rob Bicevskis over on Wildwood Survival, and he has this to say about boiled water:

I have read that boiled water will freeze into clear ice. Well, I tried: distilled water, filtered water, boiled water and "vacuumed" water. For the later, I put water into a flask, hooked up a vacuum pump and held the water at a vacuum to try to extract the air. I then put all of the water samples in identical containers and put them into the garage so they would be exposed to the same temperatures. All samples had the typical frozen entrained air problem. Getting water with no dissolved air isn't easy.

From Fire from Ice #3 - Perfecting the Ice Lens. Some very interesting ideas there, and also in article #4.

The chances of getting good conditions for it in the UK aren't too promising though...

[HillBill]

I heard you have to put the hot water directly into the freezer. Or is that what was meant by boiled water?( i was thinking boiled and cooled.)

[Pict]

Testing this method with man made ice is OK but the true test is to do it with naturally formed ice. The clearest ice I ever come across in nature is in the form of icicles and the best of these are found near waterfalls on fast flowing streams. Sometimes such ice is beautifully clear and can be quite large. I'd say its worth a try if you come across such formations and have very dry/cold/sunny conditions.

These were formed along the Delaware river during falling water conditions in the winter of 2007 and are just too pretty not to share. BTW this was just up-river from where Washington crossed over to knock around a bunch of drunk Hessians.





Clearly this wasn't the day to test the theory of ice-lens formation but it does illustrate that naturally formed ice can be quite clear optically. Mac

Edited to add - this last one seems to have lens potential.

[Ogri the trog]

Entirely possible,
as a post over on Paleoplanet discusses.....
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/21686

ATB

Ogri the trog

[wingstoo]

I understand that John Wiseman tried it for the best part of a day "under field conditions" and succeeded in get a very cold wet arm but nothing else, it is, I guess, very dependent on where you are as to what type of ice you get.

[Oblio13]

The water I put outside in a bowl yesterday froze so cloudy that I don't think any light would shine through it. No matter, though, as it's also snowing hard and forecast to continue the rest of the day. Tomorrow before dawn I fly to St. Thomas, so it'll be at least a couple days before I can give this another try.

[Wallenstein]

The reason icicles and professional ice machines are so clear is that they freeze very small amounts of water over a period of time, in small layers.

Ice machines run water over cooling elements which allows a gradual buildup of ice and avoids clouding.

I'm not sure how this would work for the ice-lens purpose - possibly leave a garden hose running slowly overnight when it's cold, and direct the flow onto a suitable container?

Also found this:

"A technique used in most ice manufacturing plants that make large blocks of ice is to put a tube in the center of the container of water that is to be frozen. Through the tube they bubble a very low pressure stream of air. Before the tube becomes ice-bound, they remove it, and they pour or suction the water that is left in the center of the ice block away. All of the impurities -- dirt, dissolved air and minerals -- are forced into this water by the crystallizing ice. They fill the void with fresh water (or not) and continue freezing. The core of the block is clouded but the rest of the block is clear. If the core is not refilled and frozen, the entire block is clear. "

[rich59]

The water I put outside in a bowl yesterday froze so cloudy that I don't think any light would shine through it. No matter, though, as it's also snowing hard and forecast to continue the rest of the day. Tomorrow before dawn I fly to St. Thomas, so it'll be at least a couple days before I can give this another try.

You can get clear ice if you use water that has been well boiled first. This drives the air out.

[Galemys]

You can get clear ice if you use water that has been well boiled first. This drives the air out.

I tried this once at the lab where I work, but boiled water didn´t make any difference compared to non-boiled in my little experiment. Demineralized water and aqua dest also yielded ´cloudy´ ice when stuck in a minus 25 freezer. I guess the cooling rate was just too fast.

My experiment was too try and make good clear ice for another way of making fire with ice: In theory (well, in my head...) it is possible to make the tube of a fire piston out of ice. So I took a straight piece of dowel rod as a piston (with a wooden knob as handgrip but without a rubber ring or wound gasket), greased it with fat and stuck it in the fridge, in the middle of a cup filled with water, this time at home. The grease was put on to retract the piston out of the ice, leaving a perfect fitting bore.
My humble try-outs were just meant to see if I could create a visible flash of the heated compressed air, if this would work I could try it with some tinder (after drying out the bore with a piece of tissue). All my ´ice fire pistons´ up to the size of a drinking glass shattered under the force of the compressed air. This could be due to the ´cloudy´ ice but maybe I just need a bigger lump of ice to try this one out. I just know it can be done!

Cheers,

Tom

PS I was skating the frozen waters of Holland this weekend and the thought occurred that I could also drill a hole in a good ´black´ piece of ice to try the ´ice fire piston´ out. I didn´t take a drill or piston with me and off course now a thawing period has set in and all the ice is vanishing.
It should be great if it would work though, imagine a whole lake acting as your fire piston...

[Pict]

I found some really clear ice today out by the creek behind the house and made a pretty good lens. Unfortunately the sun became overcast so it's propped up waiting for possible sun tomorrow. It is very difficult to get it cleaned up optically but surprisingly easy to get it into the shape of a lens. Finding clear natural ice was no problem, it took me about a minute of searching. I used my SAK and heat from my fingers to shape and polish it.

Things I learned with my first attempt at this.

Clear ice was easy to find.
The small SAK blade works great to shape ice.
It takes a much larger chunk of ice than you think. If I try this again I will use a slab at least 6 inches across and 2 inches thick.
You must use gloves to prevent your hands from constantly melting it.
Getting it clear is no problem but getting it optically pure is very difficult.

Mac