Greek Fire second lot of experiments

Today, I played about with some stuff. Firstly, I burnt, in separate piles, some paraffin, turpentine, and the turps/ paraffin/ resin/ Sulphur mix I made up yesterday. Then I tried some fun stuff with resin and sulphur, more below the cut.


Firstly, I put out three pieces of wood, and covered each with about the same amount of paraffin, turpentine oil, and the turpentine/ paraffin/ sulphur/ resin mix I made up on Saturday, firstly shaking it to put all the solids into suspension.

Then I set fire to them. They can be seen on fire below:


Left to right they are paraffin, turps, and the mixture.
After a short while, they looked like this:



As you can see, the mix burnt largest for longest. The main reason for this was that the solid resin kept burning as well as the other ingredients and sat on the wood, whereas in pouring the liquids over the wood, much of it fell off. Interestingly enough the paraffin did the most damage to the wood, although that was probably an artefact of the thin edge of the wood being easier to set on fire. However it was clear that if you wanted to really burn things, the mixture was the best.

Then I piled the wood up, poured the mixture on it, and set fire to it. After throwing some water on it, it was still burning, and you can see the beads of water here:


Such an oily mixture, full of hydrocarbons that would shed water, can re-ignite as soon as the water has slid off, if there are areas still aflame. I put it out by splashing more water over it, which would take away the heat and access to oxygen. (Remember the fire triangle- fire needs fuel, heat and oxygen, so take one away and you don’t get a fire)

At this stage it is clear that mere refined hydrocarbons are not enough. They slid off the target wood very easily, and did not really cling and burn. On an industrial scale, they would be dangerous, but at this point they do not really seem up to the job. So I really need to get hold of some crude oil to try this with- I think it will be a bit stickier and also may soak up more resin and Sulphur. Obviously its exact properties will depend upon the quality of the crude, but it is the only sensible way to go.
Moreover, it seems that troops were developed who threw incendiary material, and copper vials of naptha at opponents. This makes sense, insofar as if you get covered in hydrocarbons which then catch fire, you will be burnt badly. But if you merely run into a burning flame from such hydrocarbons, it won’t have such a drastic effect. Igniting linen properly takes a couple of seconds using a candle held just below it, and I really don’t think that a diffuse cloud of combusting hydrocarbon will do much damage. I think therefore that Greek Fire, was more than just hydrocarbons, as some have suggested.

A different weapon is mentioned by J R Partington (In “A history of Greek fire and gunpowder”), quoting Anna Comnena (an 12th Century Byzantine Princess) as writing:
“This fire they make by the following arts. From the pine and certain such evergreen trees inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with Sulphur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemy.”

So I tried this. It works nicely. I ground some resin and sulphur, put it into a 5mm ID copper tube, and blew it out over a candle. A nice cloud of flame appeared, which was very short lived, and spattered the wood in front of it with unburnt partially melted resin:



It would certainly scare people, but you would have to really scale it up to do some damage. If the resin kept burning even after landing on the target, it would be effective as a weapon. Perhaps I should add more Sulphur.
I also tried this with melted resin- I put it in the tube, warmed the tube over a trangia flame, and then tried to blow it out again. Firstly it wasn’t molten enough to flow, then when it was it didn’t catch fire properly, since it exited as droplets. Finally, the fumes didn’t want to catch fire at all.
I tried it molten because I wondered if the references to heating the greek fire before use might have meant it was molten resin, which melts quite easily. But after trying this I doubt it. You would have needed a huge amount of resin, and it would take quite a while to melt, and to be honest the resin on its own just doesn’t seem to want to ignite, even with a lighter held against it. When powdered, it is something else, but as a solid it is more unreactive than I had thought.