Hate Bow Drills? Go Suck A Lemon...

How to use a lemon to start a fire. Might be better suited to Florida/California Monkeys...

 

That is great! I wonder if there are any other fruits/vegetables that you would be able to do the same thing.

 

Gotta say, that was cool.

I bet you could skip the steel wool and use a chewing gum wrapper as the igniter, too.


By the way, a potato actually makes a better battery than a lemon. (Counter-intuitive, what?)

In setting up the circuit, "copper clips" are unnecessary. (The ones in the demo were actually brass, I think.) Just strip the insulation from several pieces of copper wire, and bend the wire into a "U" at one end.

Poke each "U" into a nail-hole in the lemon or potato, and connect each free end to a galvanized nail.

Also, for giggles and grins, you can make a 6-v battery with plain old Coca-cola.

You'd need six small containers like pill bottles or shot glasses to make the battery cells, plus copper wire and galvanized nails. Puts out a little less than 7 volts.

Coming full circle, a AAA battery puts out 1.5 volts--and that's enough to set a gum-wrapper igniter on fire.

So one (1) container of Coke, plus some copper wire and a galvanized nail should do the job as well.

Or any good single-cell battery. So...

(Visualize: Nail and copper penny protrude from potato. Trimmed gum wrapped is touched to each, and quickly ignites. Cave bear gets cooked, sabre-tooth cats stay back. Cave woman appreciates. Cave man happy. Credits roll up.)

P.S.: Boiling a potato for eight minutes makes a better battery--but you need a fire to do that. The amount of current you get depends in part on the size of the electrodes. So use big nails and heavy copper wire--or wire rolled into a flat coil, for example. Plain salt water can be used as an electrolyte, as can vinegar and sauerkraut juice. Ain't Google grand?

 

Citrus oil in the peel of an orange is flammable. Try it. Fold and squeeze the peel, and the small spritz from the peel will flame in a candle.

 

The Egyptians used citrus juices in a copper bowl to make electric with a coil of wire.

 

One could wire in a USB port and charge their cell phone.

 

I know of the special made vases with with the iron bar down the middle and the copper body, but I can not confirm the liquid used, though it is supposed to be some sort of acid. Do you have a link, please?