Okay I watched “Wrong Turn” last night, you know the movie with cannibalistic hillbillies.
Anyway they were chasing some victims through the woods at night and they were holding burning torches.
Just what the hell is used to make a wooden torch? You see them all the time in movies. It’s just not a burning chunk of wood (I’ve tried this) they just go out.
Indiana Jones used cloth wrapped around a leg bone in “The Last Crusade”, but the cloth would have quickly burnt away.
Please help!
MtM
I suppose there are many ways a torch could be made, especially with modern technology, but I think it’s traditionally a piece of cloth soaked in some flammable liquid (oil, etc.) tied around the top of a stick.
Well, in my experience we use batteries and plastic, a bit of metal and a bulb. Course, you probably call it a flashlight - we call it a torch.
The other type, I have made using diesel and a well wrapped hardwood pole.
I can’t see the cloth wrapped torch method working. Sure it will burn, but wouldn’t the cloth be consumed in a few miutes and fall off?
MtM
Nothing new to add, except 1.) This is exactly what I thought of posting when I saw the Thread Title, and 2.) I used to make torches the same way as been mentioned.
Consider that the type of accelerant and how much fabric/how tightly it’s wrapped will affect how long or bright the torch burns.
I didn’t see this before my last post; I kinda already answered this but here’s more depth:
Accelerant aside, it’s a question of volume vs surface area vs density with regard to the combustible material.
With a very dense wind you pack a lot of combustable material into a small volume and in so doing you decrease the amout of surface area. Surface area determines how quickly the substance burns because surface area determines how much oxygen can feed the combustion.
Lab Study:
Take a rag, hold it flat and light it. It will burn very easily, quickly, and brightly because almost all of it’s surface is in contact with the air. Now take a similar rag and wind it up into a rat tail, then tie that rat-tail into a big fat knot. Light it - if you can - and see how long it burns. You’ve just exchanged intensity for time, as now only the outermost surface of this ball can acquire enough oxygen to maintain combustion. Less combustion = less light, but also longer duration.
Saturate this ball with an accelerant and you can get some more brightness (the accelerant changes the characteristics of the burn - out of my knowledge-range, perhaps someone else can expand on this); stick the burning, accelerant soaked ball on a stick and you’ve got a (non-electric) torch. . .
You can make one from birch bark. (that’s cached, the site is 404).
The author says "Always obtain permission before peeling bark sheets as the fines for peeling trees without permission are stiff. ", but doesn’t say why. ** Don’t do this to a standing birch tree that isn’t going to be cut down.** The tree will die.
Think of it as a candle with an external wick. The major source of fuel is the oil that the cloth is soaked in. The cloth’s main function is not to burn and give light, but to hold the oil while it burns and gives light. Eventually the cloth will be consumed, but as with a candle, it will take quite a bit longer than a few minutes.
If you just wrap fabric around a stick and try to light it, it either won’t burn or will burn very dimly. That’s what the oil is for. A torch works like a candle: the wick isn’t the fuel, it’s just the medium for the fuel. A candle uses a wick of porous material stuck in a flammable material that is either liquid or which will melt quickly on ignition of the wick. The wick is saturated with fuel, which burns when you light the candle. As fuel burns, more fuel is sucked up through the fabric to the surface, where it combusts in turn.
In the case of a torch, the wick and reservoir are the same material. The fabric is saturated with a liquid or near-liquid fuel; when you light it, the fuel at the surface burns off and more fuel is pulled up to the surface from inside the bundle of fabric. This continues until no more fuel can be pulled up, at which point the fabric starts burning (and generally fizzles out, as Misery said). Ideally you want a fuel thick enough that it won’t run down the torch onto your arm; the idea is to hold a torch, not be one.
As for Indy–if you watch the scene again note two things:
First, the quote: “Petroleum. I should sink a well down here and retire.” There was oil of some kind in the tunnel (it may have been something lighter than crude, possibly naptha or something similar). The surface of the water was covered with the stuff.
Second, after he wrapped the rag around the bone, he dunked it to saturate it with oil. That’s what made the makeshift torch work.
Thanks for the SD folks!
Balance one thing bothered me about that Indy scene. You see him walking in the catacombs with the torch and bits of burning torch were falling of into the water. Why didn’t it ignite the oil slick? Then when the guy in the fez comes along, he just throws an Eddylite onto the slick and he gets a fireball? Wierd…
Anyway, thanks again.
MtM
Yeah, that bugged me, too. I made myself assume that he was holding the torch over the ledge so that the bits would fall safely on dry ground. Good ol’ safety-conscious Indy… 
If you don’t mind this Californian asking, what do you folks call a big stick with a burning tip used for lighting, then?
I think bear grease is used by those forest people. I read it really stinks.
A flashlight. 
No, no, silly. It’s called . . . a match!
A really BIG match.
DD
We used to soak cattails (the swamp plant, NOT kitty cat tails you turkeys!) in turpentine. They would burn for about ten minutes or so…
That sounds rather similar to a rushlight, BrotherCadfael. Rushlights were a primitive sort of candle made by soaking a dried (stripped) reed in hot animal fat until it was saturated. Properly made rushlights typically burn for about an hour; your cattail torches would likely have lasted longer with a less volatile fuel.
Other variations on torches include impaling certain birds (petrels) or fish (candlefish) and sticking a wick in them. The bodies contain enough fat and/or oil to act as a candle. (Cite, bythe way.) This isn’t really germane to the thread, I’m just fascinated by the image of someone walking around using a burning fish for light.:dubious:
Its fiber, often flax or hemp or some such, wrapped around a stick and dipped in a flammable material. We made one with old motor oil and a washcloth once, and it made a great torch.
I always thought they lookled like big Q-tips.
Kung-fu Grip GI Joe always used Q-tips for torches, until that time he used his own flocked hair for a torch.