Two questions

[Fireinfolding]

Hey, two questions here. I couldnt find a how to on the internet or a specific forum here to ask but I would suppose both questions could be answered by someone here.

One, how do I remove one of those long lightbulbs (you know those older long light bulbs for indoor plants)? I cant even figure it out and I feel I will break the glass if I keep trying to pull it out like I am. I am doing something wrong here.

And two, its been bugging me to hack into one of those emergency essential liquid candles (and so I did) and since that oil freezes it seems to me to be paraffin oil, and I wanted to know because their candles last so long (and I am sort of experimenting with mixing that with that and clean fuel (so far no explosions or anything). But just in case I light the mix on the grill and let it go. Supposedly those glass refilable tealights (for which) I purchased the gallon of clean fuel will go out if they ever spilled over (which I love about them) and so I am trying to make my own.

AND I really wanted to recover that wick to do so inexpensively, because its a folded (in the middle) wick and enough for about two more candles (about the same size) and these particular wicks just last for ever with no trimming needed (for the most part). And since we buy these by the case when they are on sale it would save us even more money to recoop these and make something "refillable" and by finding out what works best in them.

So I would really like to recover the top part much better. I mean I am recovering it but its rather ragged to look at. If you have done this sort of thing before, how would you do it? I only have my husbands hand drill here, I cant seem to find my dremel drill, although I bet that would be better to use, not sure

But I know the emmergency essential liquid candles aren't meant to be refillable (but disposable) and so the metal part (or the candle wick holder) at the top of it is glued down onto the plastic container part, so I just cut around the plastic part the best I could and lifted it out and made another liquid candle from the top parts of it (and by adding clean fuel into another container). I still have to time how long this one burns, the others I buy do last 100-115 hours. I would think "I got it" when mine measures around the same time. Although, I didnt bend the wick like they do, and I did sort of wonder why they did that, or if it could work the same without using more wick (as they use) I mean, why not do that? So I will try it this way and test it out again after I burn down another one in order to do so.

Any ideas here? Even tool suggestions for doing this?

Thanks for any help (if you can offer any)

 

[Fireinfolding]

On the candle this is the disposable liquid candle I am talking about

When I said I cut out the top part where the yellow line is (above) is where I cut (where its kind of jaggedy)

And in the above (if you removed the label) the arrows are pointing out that folded wick (which looks like two wicks but is just one wick).

That is a disposable liquid candle, and I believe this too is also disposable

Not sure though, but the next one below is one I have purchased, and those are NOT glued down, but you can see the metal part coming up slightly in the picture, as that can be pulled up and refilled.

These ones you buy (regardless of the ounces) just dont last as long as the 100-115 hour ones. I grabbed the wicks on the former ones because the oil wicks for these are expensive (and they dont fold them either) as I wondering about (as to whether they would last longer doing that or not).

Because a ten pack of these (2.6 MM wicks for the same)

Is $29.99 over at Amazon.

So, it just makes sense to fudge around and see if you can put together something more inexpensively.

If you wanted the gallon of fuel, a few replacement wicks, and a handful of glass refillable tea lights, here is all three of them

Just a little pricy I think.

 

[MWood]

I can't help you with your candle project. But I think this long light bulb you are talking about is probably an 8 foot florescent bulb. If so, then one end of the bulb is inserted into a spring loaded connector, and the other end is inserted into a stationary connector. Push the bulb against the spring loaded connector and it will disengage from the stationary connector, and there you have it. Good luck.

 

[Fireinfolding]

I can't help you with your candle project. But I think this long light bulb you are talking about is probably an 8 foot florescent bulb. If so, then one end of the bulb is inserted into a spring loaded connector, and the other end is inserted into a stationary connector. Push the bulb against the spring loaded connector and it will disengage from the stationary connector, and there you have it. Good luck.

Close enough MWood, thanks for your response. Its a four foot flourecent bulb actually, close enough though, and I tried that too! Even retried it again after reading your post and I cant get it out.

I am ready to chuck it onto the front yard LOL

If one side is spring loaded neither side (whichever side that is) it isnt budging for me. I can pull either side back just a tad to see what looks like two copper connecters going into either side, but I just cant seem to disconnect these. My husband cant either and he put it together for me but he cant recall how he got them in and this is actually my first time needing to change them out. They just seem stuck in it and I keep getting this feeling that I am being too rough with it and should be more careful because I could possibly break it in my hand and probably end up with stitches or something.

I can usually figure stuff out and pretty good at taking a thing apart (better then actually putting them back together again) but this is nuts (a lightbulb?) LOL

Still not budging for me here, thanks for responding, I hate throwing things out, although I might have to because I believe they are stopping with these sorts of bulbs or something like that, I dont know.

 

[MWood]

Sorry. I should have covered the four foot bulb also. Sorry. The four foot bulb, you give a quarter turn twist either way and the two pins line up with the slot, and it comes right out. Now that wasn't so hard was it? And now you have it. Good luck.

 

[Fireinfolding]

Sorry. I should have covered the four foot bulb also. Sorry. The four foot bulb, you give a quarter turn twist either way and the two pins line up with the slot, and it comes right out. Now that wasn't so hard was it? And now you have it. Good luck.

That WORKED!!!

Thank you so much MWood I really appreciate the help here

Hey, and my husband says thanks to you as well.

God bless you MWood (whew, so glad thats behind me) lol

 

[MWood]

That WORKED!!!

Thank you so much MWood I really appreciate the help here

Hey, and my husband says thanks to you as well.

God bless you MWood (whew, so glad thats behind me) lol

You and your husband are welcome. And Merry Christmas.

 

[Fireinfolding]

To you as well MWood, thanks again brother

 

[FreeinChrist]

Sorry. I should have covered the four foot bulb also. Sorry. The four foot bulb, you give a quarter turn twist either way and the two pins line up with the slot, and it comes right out. Now that wasn't so hard was it? And now you have it. Good luck.

That is handy to know! Learn something new everyday.

 

[MWood]

Your welcome, I'm glad to be a help.

 

[Fireinfolding]

Okay, I am just updating the liquid candle experiment. After I was done using the emmergency essential candle, I hacked the top off of it, and did a messy job with that one, I will do a cleaner cut the next time. The wick and wick holder (disposable as they may be) still works beautifully. I have burned through about 4 ounces more of the clean fuel in a mason jar. Its lit right now. Nice flame, and no problems so far I just refilled it with more clean fuel tonight, didnt even trim the wick (didnt need it).

I'll cut the next one more carefully, I went looking to see if I could find something that might fit better (without looking so much like a rig job) lol. I stink at math, didnt measure, but eyeballed the top (just the metal part this time) and tried my luck on these 12 pre drilled mason jar lids (hoping for the best) and its a perfect match between the two.

These here

So I will cut the metal wick holder cut away from its container this time, because it would rest perfectly on top of the pre drilled lids without falling through.

I purchased these for just the liquid candles (so to distinguish my food mason jars, from liquid candles) Im not even sure I really need to do that I just did. I am keeping the lids, just not using them in this.

The predrilled mason jar lids fit these or any regular mouth mason jar.

I liked these, so I fill one of these up with liquid clean fuel (you can buy that in 1-5 gallons even). Screw on predrilled lid and then drop the wick in through the predrilled lid and the metal wick holder rests on the predrilled lid.

Although I thought I should keep a washer between the wick holder and galvanized lid I'm not sure why, Im not good with metals to know either way yet. But if you look at the reviews for those predrilled lids (not in that one place, but elsewhere) many reviews say they rust for water use (as the holes were really drilled for soap and lotion dispensers) and so have been tried for that purpose. I didnt need them for that so I didnt care so much and they have other ones to chose from too.

I hope I made the right choice, I suppose time will tell.

Anyone know anything pro or con about chosing a galvanized metal lid to use for this? Like, is that a bad idea or does anyone know of a better option maybe?

 

[Fireinfolding]

I tried it again, this way below, and this is much easier too.

I always take the hard way first, but I had asked my husband to pick me up a metal bit because I didnt really know what size and type for it and because I wanted to try drilling into those (and he didnt do that) so I just used his wood bit (hope he wont be mad at me).

I think that will be okay though because its not that heavy of a metal lid or anything.

This time I just drilled a single hole through a regular galvanized lid (one with no pre drilled holes in it) having purchased these oil candle wicks here

And after having soaked the wicks also I just added the aluminum wick holder and wick onto one of these

I really need a camera to take pictures as I do stuff, might be easier.

And I just set it up on the same mason jar ( as is pictured in the above post)

That was much easier, and faster.

Although I had goofed when I went into the garage to drill the lids because I grabbed one of my wide mouth galvanized lids first and drilled through that and then went to screw it onto the jar and was like, great, that was dumb of me.

I wasn't intending to use any of the larger wide mouth jars for this
But I guess I am now (lol)

 

[AGTG]

Those flourescent bulbs need to be spun to take them out. They have two prong-like terminals at each end. If you spin them, you can find they have little spring catches that line up in the terminals. Spin them out of those catches and when the prongs line up with the side of the terminal that has an opening, you can slip them out on one end and the other end will just pull straight out.

 

[Fireinfolding]

Thanks AGTG

MWood agrees with your advice and it worked, now to get bulbs to go in, I still havent gotten those yet.