Here at the Institute for Extremely Low-Budget Research (where we are too cheap to get an acronym that spells anything), we are always on the lookout for experiments we can perform that a) provide a valuable public service, b) don’t cost anything, and c) allow us to set things on fire. Fortunately, the internet provides a never-ending wealth of bizarre claims that we can test. When we saw this one recently, we knew it was made for us.
In our alternate persona as the Society for Turning Things into Other Things, we have often made candles out of old candle ends. In one of our early candle-making endeavors, we decided we wanted to make the candles purple, but we were too cheap to go out and buy candle dye, so we used several old crayons and melted them in with the candle wax. The candles turned out purple, all right, but they didn’t burn very well. The wick stayed lit, but the wax melted very quickly and ran down the candleholder and all over the tablecloth. We determined at the time that this was due to the addition of the crayons, since none of the other candles we’d made out of similar wax had done this. We have not used crayons as a candle additive since.
However, who are we to discount an anonymous internet claim based on our own prior experience?
A quick rummage in the Institute’s office supply drawer turned up three different types of crayons: standard Crayola, large-size Prang, and some generic ones the same size as the Crayolas. We used the yellow crayon from each type, to eliminate unnecessary variables. We stuck each of the three yellow crayons upright on a saucer with poster putty and used kitchen matches to attempt to light the pointed ends. None of them would light, but the wax melted and ran down the wrappers. Thinking the wrappers might act as a wick, we then attempted to light the wrappers, which were now soaked with melted wax. The Crayola and Prang wrappers scorched slightly, but would not catch fire. After several attempts, we finally managed to get the wrapper of the generic crayon to catch fire, but it went out after approximately three seconds.
Investigating the possibility that yellow crayons contain an inflammable pigment of some sort, we then tried the same procedure with the generic red crayon, and obtained the same results.
At this point, we determined that, in the technical parlance developed by our favorite TV show, this one was “Busted.”
However, we still needed to see if we could get crayon wax to burn at all. We decided perhaps a better wick was needed. We took a metal tea-light cup, made a wick out of four thicknesses of cotton crochet thread twisted together (which we have often used as a wick when making other candles) and stuck the end of the wick into the tea-light cup with a small blob of poster putty. We then removed the wrapper from the yellow Prang crayon (we chose that one because it was already ruined anyway, and although it was partially melted away there was still as much or more wax left than in a standard-size crayon), put it on a saucer, and melted it in the microwave. It took three minutes on high. We poured the wax into the tea-light cup. It filled the cup about halfway. We let it cool for about half an hour while we ate lunch.
Once the wax had solidified, we lit the wick. At first it burned nicely, but then the flame began to sputter. It stayed lit for about five minutes, for most of which it wasn’t producing enough light to be very useful. It went out before it had burned up the whole wick; there was still about half the thickness of the candle left. This leads us to the tentative conclusion that melted candle wax actually extinguishes flame, but more research is necessary on this.
Now it was time to move on to the phase of replicating the results. The picture clearly shows a crayon burning. We had two theories as to how this was achieved: 1) saturating the wrapper with something that’s actually flammable, or 2) Photoshop. Since we don’t have any Photoshop skills, we tested theory #1. We took the orange Crayola crayon (which appears to be the one in the picture), dipped it in rubbing alcohol, stood it up on a saucer with poster putty, and lit the wrapper. The results were phenomenal. The whole crayon was engulfed in flame, which was bluer than the picture but otherwise looked very much the same. It burned nicely for about ten seconds, which is a far cry from the thirty minutes claimed by but certainly long enough to take a photo. Once the alcohol was gone, the flame went out, leaving the crayon only slightly melted and the wrapper mostly unscathed. We determined that this is probably how the original picture was created.
There is, however, another result we felt it was important to try and replicate. Obviously the purpose of trying to burn a crayon “in an emergency” is to provide light. If your electricity goes out, and you are so ill-prepared as not to have a flashlight, any actual candles, a kerosene lantern, or any of those ubiquitous little solar-powered yard lights, what else could you burn to create light? We immediately thought of several substances we have around our house that seem like they should be flammable, including chapstick, hand sanitizer, Tiger Balm, and butter. However, we decided that if we were really trying to find a light source during a power outage, wandering around in the dark trying to set random household objects on fire would probably be a bad idea. We therefore decided to try one we were sure would work, because it’s been around for millennia and we’ve even seen it used successfully in the SCA – the good old fashioned cooking oil lamp.
Historically, of course, this type of lamp would have burned olive oil. We used peanut oil, because olive oil is expensive, and we had most of a bottle of peanut oil in the cupboard from making one of those recipes that calls for a quarter-cup of something and then you end up with the rest of the container taking up space in your kitchen until the end of time. We poured a quarter-cup of peanut oil into a beer bottle, made another twisted-crochet-thread wick, and suspended it in the bottle by means of a large paper clip laid across the top. We lit the wick, and it quickly burned down to the paper clip and fell into the bottle. We fished it out, and figured that having the wick soaked with oil to start with could only help. We tied a knot in the oily wick, which was fairly disgusting, to keep it from falling through the paper clip, and tried again. It burned for about a minute before burning down to the paper clip and going out. We decided that maybe our wick needed to be thicker, so we tried heavy cotton yarn, but it didn’t work any better.
At that point we were out of options. We knew that wool or synthetic yarn or string wouldn’t work for a wick, and we didn’t have any linen or hemp string. If we had really been relying on our ingenuity during a power outage, we would have had to sit around in the dark playing word games, or listening to the hand-cranked radio.
So let’s enumerate our conclusions:
1) Crayons don’t burn. The internet is lying.
2) Keep a flashlight handy, and check the batteries once in a while.
3) Don’t try this at home!
This Otter Be Good 