How would one make a Hollywood torch? You know the ones I mean - kinda bulbous at the end, seem to provide lots of light, last forever, used by villagers in Frankenstein movies, archaelogists in Mummy movies…
They use 'em in dungeons, too. They last forever. How do they do that?
Here’s a picture of a Hollywood torch, which presumably can be built upon to look like an old mummy torch or whatever.
Prior to the invention of such torches it wouldn’t surprise me if the torches were some sort of fire-resistant stick with rags soaked in something flammable wrapped around one end, but someone with actual effects knowledge will undoubtedly be along.
My guess would be a stout stick, one end wrapped in a wad of absorbent material such as cotton canvas, then dipped in tallow or wax. The absorbent material needs to be secured to the stick in some way that won’t come undone when it burns (wire, perhaps) and I expect the amount of wax on the thing is critical - too much and it will drip, not enough and it will burn out quickly.
It’s probably worth noting that things in movies nearly always work better than in real life - partly because they look better that way and partly because in real life, you can’t edit out all the bits where the main character is screaming “Owwww , it dripped hot stuff on my frickin’ head, can you believe this? Where’s my agent?”
I seem to recall that pitch was the magic ingredient. I think wax would just melt and drip off.
(bump)
Does anyone have the Straight Dope on this?
Sources vary. Many state that a bundle of resinous wood such as pine twigs can be lit as a torch on their own, without a wick. (Or rather, the charred wood acts as its own wick.) Others suggest that you can impregnate wood with pitch or fat, or attach a wick of some kind.
http://www.wilsonmuseum.org/bulletins/summer2003_2.html
http://www.antiquelamps.net/history.html
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/scienceservice/025066.htm
Generally speaking, you need a very low-volatility fuel with a high hot viscosity. Pitch would be best. The flame only volatises the fuel immediately adjacent to it, and more fuel is drawn to the flame by capillary action. Although the pitch melts, it is still viscous enough to be held in the wood or the wick by capillary action. (Although if I were making one for myself, I’d put a pitch-soaked wick in a metal cup at the top of thing, just to be safe.)
Liquid fuels such as kerosene are going to become less viscous with the heat, run down the stick and burn your hand. The entire load of kerosene may become heated above its flash point and flare up. Kerosene or diesel are too volatile to be used in torches, and gasoline of course is right out.
Paraffin wax or tallow might work, but I’d still be wary. I’ve seen one of those little night-light candles with a couple of burnt matches left in it acting as extra wicks. The liquid wax pool became so hot that the whole surface of the wax pool caught fire, no wicks required.
Birch bark torch - not really what you’re looking for, but still…
http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/bible/nu-cold.html
Wow, thanks, matt.
The Hollywood Torch effect was most notable in the early 1960s version of The Time Machine. IIRC, he merely had a short wad of cloth on a stick, but it lasted all through the scene.
You’d think, wouldn’t you? Actually kerosene works pretty well, but it burns so very hotly that it’s hard to hold after a couple of minutes. It’s better mixed with ultrapure lamp oil in equal parts. Still a nice bright fire, but not so hot.
Most of the time for performance though, we’ll simply use charcoal lighter fluid. Not so hot or bright, but a nice steady, cheap flame that’s not too hazardous to transport.
The thing they don’t show, however, is that torches go out, and do so pretty quickly. Our burns last about 5-7 minutes, depending on the size of the wick and how well you soak it beforehand (as well as how wildly you’re spinning - more movement = more oxygenation = faster burn). The torches , staffs , fans and chain heads are made of Kevlar , which is wrapped around either wood (wrapped in leather) or sometimes alluminum or fiberglass - usually the longer staffs (sometimes upwards of 7 feet) have an alluminum or fiberglass core to make them much lighter than they look. The chains are wrapped Kevlar bolted to itelf and clipped onto chains (linked or the newfangled-everyone’s-gotta-have-'em ball chains.)
WhyNot, of the Stinkee Beetle Tribe firespinners and performers.
Heh. I thought someone might bring up jugglers and firebreather’s torches! Read a few sites while I was looking for the answer to the OP. Looks like some people even use Coleman fuel on them, which isn’t too far off gasoline…
I suspect the trick is in the kevlar wick material, which holds the liquid fuel however much its viscosity changes. If I were using a cotton wick on a wooden stick, I’d personally avoid kerosene in favour of lower volatility fuels.
I don’t really understand how you get away with using such volatile fuels from the point of view of flaring up, but I’ll take your word for it. Perhaps the aluminium shaft conducts enough heat away that they don’t have time to reach flash point before the end of their short burn time. Or maybe the wick is designed to operate with the fuel actually boiling - that might work with a small enough pore size, and kevlar fibres are VERY fine.
Still don’t really know how the ones Indiana Jones used worked. In Last Crusade in the Venice catacombs, his torch was shedding burning fragments, so it wasn’t a butane-based prop or anything like that.
As a Roman re-enactor in the UK I have appeared as an extra in documentaries and on two occasions torches were involved.
In each case, the torch comprised a simple stick with rags at one end. The rags were soaked in parafin. In one case, the torches had a old bean can nailed to the end and this was covered in rags. I think that was done just to give the torch a little more shape. These worked just fine, one just had to watch out for the occasional burning drip.
In both cases, firefighters and tender were just out of shot.
Simple as that. I guess I was wrong about the kerosene. (“Paraffin” is what we call kerosene this side of the Atlantic. American “paraffin” is what Brits call “wax”.)
I was thinking asking about how torches work just the other day.
In Raiders Of The Lost Ark, the torches they use (both in the opening teaser segment and later in the Well of Souls) aren’t solid at all but are bundles of what appear to be reeds or twigs, presumably soaked in kerosene or pitch. I’m trying to recall other films where torches were used for comparison but I can’t envision any offhand.
In C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian (which is the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia, despite how HarperTrophy enumerates them) the children, finding themselves transported to the ruins of the presumed Cair Paravel, attempt to fashion torches from sticks and do miserably; as I recall, Lewis described them as “if held with the lighted end up they went out, and if held the other way the flame scortched your hand and the smoke got in your eyes.” They eventually gave up on torches and used Edmond’s electric torch (flashlight to us Yanks) to confirm the nature of the ruins and secure their Gifts. It was a nice bit of reality, espeically as I had attempted to make a torch myself from pine boughs and had the same problem.
Stranger
I once made a surprisingly good torch out of an old broom. I sprayed the sweeping end with a generous amount of Pam cooking oil and lit it. It burned for quite a while, and when I put it out the bristles were hardly burned.