Wow
That burst into flames in like one like instantly. Hey, what's up guys welcome back to the workshop
I'm here today with Nate and we got a pretty cool project for you today
We're building a mini solar scorcher now to this day
I still get comments and feedback from people at one of their favorite
Projects has always been the mega solar scorcher where I took the lens off of a giant flat-screen
TV and use sunlight to boil water and melt metal I also still get people asking me where to get those kind of TVs and
Which kind of TVs work and which ones don't I got a TV screen?
And I disassembled it the same way grant did in his but when I tried focusing the sunlight through it
It wouldn't focus into a pinpoint
So I was never really able to get that high heat that grant did and that's because not all TV Fernell lenses are created
equal so if you go out and get a TV it might work it might not so for this project we want to take the
Concept we wanted to scale it down so you can make a desktop solar scorcher
that's guaranteed to work every time check this out so for this project you're gonna need paint sticks a
Fernell lens that you can get at the dollar store a piece of cardboard and a few different types of hardware for assembling everything
These paint sticks you can pick up the local Lowe's or Home Depot
They're 99 cents for a pack of 10
The fern Elan's comes from the dollar store for a surprise a dollar and then each of these little hardware packets you pick up from
The hardware aisle and hardware store as well
They're about a dollar each you're gonna end up spending about six dollars on hardware
And that's gonna get you all sorts of machine screws the half-inch three-quarter inch and one and a quarter inch variety
You're also gonna get number eight flat washers some wing nuts and one in 5/8 inch eye bolts all of the hardware
we're using is number eight thirty to eight has to do with the size of the hardware and
32 is the amount of threads per inch it's also worth noting that with the 3/4 and the one and a quarter machine
bolts you only need two of each so if you want to go to a hardware store that sells them
Individually you might be able to save yourself a dollar or two
aside from that all we're gonna need is a little bit of wood glue some cardboard and
Drill a knife and a saw to put it all together. So we got all of our materials gathered up or a start building
We're gonna use the paint sticks and the fernell lens and begin by building a frame for the lens itself
So here's what we've just done
we use a folded piece of paper to mark the
45-degree angle on the paint sticks
And then cut out four long and four short ones to build the frame and just press that X we turn the paint stick so
That all the markings are on the same side and the notches line up with each other just makes it look a little bit better
And after we cut out the pieces of the frame you should end up with eight of these little triangles scraps that you want to
Hang on to because they're gonna be integral to the integrity of our frame now to finish the frame off
We're going to put a little bit of glue on the corners on both sides of the frame
We're then going to glue the 2 together with the front ends in between and then reinforce it with the screws
Alright guys we have the actual frame for the fern Ellen's complete things are looking really good
And I wanted to show you some of the things you need to take note of first of all for the fern L
Lens itself there's a very smooth side and if you flip it over
There's a ridge of the side
So you put your half-inch machine screws in put the rounded smooth side on the same smooth side as the fern ellen's itself everything ruff
should be sticking up out of the back you also notice that at the bottom and the top of the frame we put one and
a quarter inch machine screws those need to be as straight and upright as possible because those are going to be our Sun finders and
You'll see how they work in just a couple minutes all this left to do is attach the eye bolts so this thing can pivot
And then we'll build a stand
So here we have a guy's the stand is assembled and attached at this point our mini solar scorcher is just about complete
The other thing that's gonna be really helpful with your solar Scorchers
if you have some kind of a base or a
Platform that you can put things on in this case we just went down to the dollar store
And we picked up this piece of Ninja Turtle cardboard
we cut it to shape so that it fits right over the lens and
Cut some holes in the tops that actually fits over top of the bolts in the back as well now if you want to get
Fancy you can just take some aluminum foil some spray glue glue it all together and having that metal foil on there will actually make
It a little bit safer as well
Not only is the main solar sports are very convenient very easy to work with and made to sit on your desktop
It's also got some cool
Built-in features as well for example when you're outside and you want to find out the exact perfect angle of the Sun
These two bolts on the back act almost like an improvised Sun leveler
You basically just adjust the lens and maneuver the frame until the shadow
completely disappears
When there's no more shadow it means the Sun is perfectly lined up and when you found that perfect position just reached over and tighten
Up the wingnut, and it will hold the frame perfectly in place
We've also designed the mini solar scorcher to fold up flat for convenient easy storage
So now we got our mini solar scorcher set up 100% complete. Let's take it outside and test it out
all right guys
we are now outside and just to see what kind of power this thing has we're gonna try burning a number of different things and
Considering this is actually made out of paint sticks. I thought it might be fun to start off by burning a paint stick
I'm kind of wondering like if you just make sure that's focused and
Just come up to it slowly because you want to find the center point and then slowly bring it toward the scorcher
And alright when it hits that focus it starts burning
And there burst into flame
But yeah, there's how to start your survival fires man with a little desktop toy look at this down here
I mean you can see that beam of light
But it's definitely not focused if we start bringing the wood toward the focal point boom wow
That burst into flames in like one like instantly yeah
That's what the make a solar scorcher does the same thing let's see if we can do that again slowly bring it to a point
Right about there, and it bursts into flame. That is
absolutely insane
So make no mistake about it size in this case doesn't necessarily matter(thats what she said) because the solar scorcher is powerful
That's crazy, so there's pretty cool guys. We got paint sticks to light on fire
We got two-by-fours to light on fire
I was a little surprised that the paint sticks took longer to catch them the 2x4
But I think it's cuz they were a lighter color, so they're reflecting more of the heat now
We know this thing is working. Let's try lighting off other fun things like smoke powder
firecrackers in the book of matches
The smoke powder look great. We got lots of really cool colors. I especially liked on that last one
how it lit on fire
Before it was even moved into the focal point it was still hot enough to light the smoke even though there was plenty of heat
Left to add that was really cool
And the book of matches as soon as the focal point hit the match heads they all ignited
And there's a little bit of a fireball flying off the sides of it it looked awesome
That was pretty cool alright so for one final experiment
I'm thinking why don't we just take it to the next level and try lighting off firecrackers for the win?
I'm actually really impressed the
Aluminum foil seems to be holding up pretty well so even though we're using cardboard by coating it with a little metal foil
Seems to make it a little more durable
firecracker versus sunlight
That was just good old-fashioned fun the thing I noticed there is we actually had to lift the base up so the fuse of the
Firework actually made it into the focal point of the Sun
It looks like there was about a one to two inch
Disparity before there's enough sunlight to actually like to see you so this time
I'm gonna set a rock on top of it first and see if we can just slide it straight into the beam
Hang so there you have a guy's mini solar scorcher for the win it takes down matches it takes down wood it even lights
Fireworks how much cooler does it get and the best part is you can get all the materials from your local hardware store for under
$10 so rather than getting one of those old TVs and dismantling it trying to use the giant Fornell lens and being
Frustrated when it doesn't work you can have all of the same fun with none of the aggravation
Thanks for joining us for this product guys. We will be looking for you the next one. Talk to you then
Well that even went into my workbench be careful you really will ignite the fire within
Alright, that's enough