Guys something just happened which
absolutely blows my mind. One of my quick
clips just went over 10 million views.
It's absolutely incredible. Now this is a
video showing a concept where you can
take an AA battery and a gum
wrapper and use it to start a survival
fire. It's a really cool idea I first saw
on Household Hacker and yes it actually
does work. Now here's the challenge: while
reading through the comments I noticed a
lot of you were having trouble with this
at home because it was either burning
your fingers or wasn't lighting off at
all. So the purpose of this video is to
dive into even more detail so you fully
comprehend how it works and then we'll
use that technique to start a fire out
in the desert today. Now the trick to
actually getting this to work lies
within the gum wrapper itself. So I
stopped by the grocery store and picked
up three different packs of gum so
we can compare. What we're looking for is
a wrapper that has a shiny metallic
exterior but a textured fibrous interior
something like this, and you're also
going to need an AA battery which
you should be able to find in all
different kinds of electronic equipment
including flashlights. Now you probably
know by now that a battery has a
positive end and a negative end and if you
use something conductive to connect the
two ends electricity will begin to flow.
If we think of electricity like water
then the voltage coming out of the
battery is like the pressure of the
electricity and the conductor that we're
using is like the tube or the piping
that takes for water to where we need to
go. If we use a thick pipe like this the
energy can flow relatively freely and
nothing really happens. It's just going
to get the battery really hot and burn
your fingertips. *ouch*. But if we make the
size of the pipe thinner the electrical
pressure and resistance build up to the
point where they actually generate a
significant amount of heat and it is a
little bit of a balancing act because
too thick and it won't light off at all
too thin and it just burns in half. We're
trying to find that sweet spot where it
goes up in flames every time.
Now what I found works best for me is to
take one of your gum wrappers and cut it
lengthwise into thirds. This will make
three different igniters. When you've got
those pieces cut trim it in from the
sides to form an hourglass shape so the
part in the middle is about the same
thickness as the blade on your pair of
scissors if you've done it right it
should look something like this now here
is how to get your improvised igniter to
work take your fourth finger and rest it
underneath one end of the igniter so the
foil is facing up then take the bottom
of your double a battery and press it
down into your finger so it holds the
foil in place and use your thumb and
forefinger to hold the battery straight
up like this now this last part happens
pretty quick we're going to take the top
piece of foil and press this on top of
the battery with our thumb and hold it
vertically until it bursts into flames.
When I made my quick clip I used this big
5 gum, it works really well for me and
I've got to work almost every single
time but it doesn't make me wonder how
other gums might compare so I picked up
some Juicy Fruit and Orbit just to see
if there's any difference. Opening up
here and the first thing i noticed this
actually got a paper exterior here
there's no shiny metallic side to that
at all it's just paper and if we open
that up it's just paper as well. So just
based on that observation I do not think
that Juicy Fruit is going to work, we
need a shiny conducted metallic surface
and paper is not going to do the job.
To be fair I'm going to cut this up and
try it anyway because we can't really be
sure of the results before we put it to the
test. All right here we go contact and
nothing our hypothesis is confirmed
paper is non-conductive. No success with
Juicy Fruit we're going to try Orbit
next and here's the reveal... yeah these
are just covered in paper as well so
pretty sure those are not going to work
probably better put them to the test
just to be sure but I already know
they're not going to work and these ones
a little bit too short they probably
won't reach the battery terminals anyway.
Ooh barely. You can get it to reach, but
barely. That's as good as it gets. No reaction
all right Orbit doesn't work. It's not going
to save your life. Very interesting guys
we have been able to confirm that only
the gum wrappers with the foil on the
outside seem to work as igniters but
that's not all if you want to get these
things to work there are two more things
you need to know first. First of all the
way you hold your battery actually makes
a huge difference. If your igniter makes
contact while your battery is being held
horizontally, most of the heat will
dissipate upwards reducing your chances
of this thing actually igniting at all
but when you hold your battery
vertically the heat transfers up into
the material greatly increasing your
chances of ignition. If you're one of
the people burning your fingertips when
trying this the other thing that's good
to know is rip off little pieces of your
gum or pieces of the cardboard box. You
can use these pieces as insulation to
protect your fingertips when the foil
makes contact. So now that we have this
technique mastered let's go ahead and
gather up some dry grass and sticks and see
if we can use it to start a fire
That went up in no time flat. Cool
guys, let's put the gum wrappers away
and talk about what we've learned so far.
We found that in order to get this
technique to work we need to use
wrappers that have foil on the outside
and some kind of a fibrous material on
the inside, we also discovered that one
wrapper could be used to make at least
three different igniters. We cut these
wrappers into an hourglass shape and saw
just how important it was to leave the
right thickness from the middle because
when the bridge is too thick it doesn't
light off and when it's too thin it just
snaps apart. Cutting them to the width of
one blade on our pair of scissors seem
to be just about perfect. We found that
if we hold our igniters horizontally the
heat dissipates upwards and they're less
likely to go off but if we hold them
vertically the heat is captured into the
material where they go off nearly every
time finally we learned that at the end
of the battery are heating up and
burning your fingers you can simply rip
off pieces of gum or cardboard from the
box itself to use as insulation to protect
your fingers from any burns. As a side
note I did try ripping about eight gum
wrappers into igniters but unfortunately
I wasn't able to get any of them to go off.
That's it for this experiment guys
thanks for joining me for this video and
I'll be looking for you the next one
talk to you then. That went up in no time
flat first try. (COZ I'M BATMAN)