Alcohol Burner

In this shot you can see the lab stand. Its base takes up a fair amount of bench space, but I found I could put my stainless and graphite marvers on top of it :-) so not much is lost.

The Alcohol Burner Theory has worked out very well in real life. I found that it was useful for:

warming up rods: I can stick a cold glass rod right into the alky flame instead of having to wave it about in the main flame. Never liked that waving-about technique anyway -- when I have two rods to deal with I start feeling like an air drummer. Pre-heating in the alky flame works very well for all but the most tetchy (goldstone) rods.

warming up dichro: the cool alky flame is not hot enough to melt the dichro off the glass! So I can heat up little dichro bits and bobs without fear of frying the coating right off them or melting the tweezers onto them.

keeping larger pieces happy: I made some pieces with weird skinny appendages, the kind of stuff that I've previously had trouble keeping intact. No problems. I think the alky flame, fat and diffuse, warms up the whole air envelope under the main flame.

Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with the way it's worked out. It's cheap and simple (two of my favourite qualities in a tool). One fill-up of denatured alcohol lasts well over 4 hours (I haven't recently wanted to work longer than that at one stretch). One can of fuel is good for (my guess) at least six or seven fills and costs about $3. The flame is clean, the fuel is non-toxic (unless you chug it) and any fumes are sweetish, not unpleasant, and afaik not very harmful.

I think this is the cheapest "crossfire" available for soft glass :-)

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