Who Knew?...

[USAFVET98]

I was watching One Way Out last night and saw something really simple but cool. If you are unsure, one way out is a show about an escape artist that tries to escape being restrained under the harshest of conditions such as being set on fire, buried alive, being run over, or spinning. On the show, there is the escape artist and two friends. One friend records everything including the tests, and the other is an engineer.

Anyway, the engineer said last night that not too many people know it, but if you touch a 9 volt battery to a piece of steel wool, it will start a fire.

Of Course I had to try it today and it worked. It's amazing that something so simple, could be so cool and potentially useful.

So keep your steel wool in a different drawer than your batteries..

 

[Rollerbob]

Great to start campfires with!

 

[rjwolfe3]

Our inmates use batteries and metal to light their illegal tobacco and mary j at the prison I work at. I have been trying to get them to show me how but they won't.

 

[alphageek]

Any thin metal + short circuit = VERY hot very fast. Add in to it plenty of surface area for oxygen (steel wool has TONS of surface area) and yep... burns really good.