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| Ingredients needed:
NaClO3/NaCl weed killer, Paper towels, Rubber gloves, Pastry (or any other kind of) brush, Scissors, Egg white, Water, Kitchen plate, Bowl, Thick paper |
| Right, to start off with make a saturated solution of NaClO3/NaCl weed killer. To do this, pour an amount of weed killer into a bowl, and add water until it is all dissolved, so that there is nothing left on the bottom of the bowl. Once that has been done, place a sheet of paper towel on the plate, and then pour over it some of the saturated solution. Once the paper towel has absorbed all it will, take hold of the top of it (while wearing gloves of course) and lay onto a sheet of thick paper. Then, leave it overnight to dry under a desk lamp. In the morning, it should be dry, and feel tougher than usual paper towels. if it still feels damp, either leave it under the lamp for a day, or just leave it in a dry place, such as an airing cupboard. If your area is particularly damp, then it may not dry in the open, and so you may be forced to dry it in an airing cupboard. |
| When you are left with a dry sheet of paper towel, you are ready to make the fuse. First, using either a pair of scissors or a paper guillotine (what I use and IMHO a much better choice as it cuts it straight) cut a 5cm high and 24cm wide strip from the towel (my paper towels are 24cm wide, so I just cut a 5cm strip from the top). Then, fold it in half to find the middle, and then cut across this point, to give you two 12cm long pieces of paper towel, similar to the one on the right -> |  |
| Now carefully fold one side over, but only by a little bit. You will then have something that looks like the pictures on the right, the first being a drawing as if you are looking at it, and the second is a birds eye view. | 
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| Then, pressing down on the sedge of the fold, roll it along, applying pressure at all times, until it has completely been rolled, and you are left with something like the picture on the right. You will now have a 12cm long fuse, that's approximately 3-4mm wide and 12cm long. It should burn at about 1.5cm/s, but you should check yours just to make sure. If you follow the same procedures every time then you should get similar burn times, but always allow yourself more time than needed. I would use this length fuse in something like a cracker, allowing myself 8 seconds, just in case anything went wrong. ALWAYS give yourself more time than needed, I cannot stress this strongly enough. |  |
| Now, you can leave it as is, but I would
not suggest it. This fuse will bend, and when it bends it is not as
reliable, as the rolled fuse is not held together by anything, so the
paper comes undone. So, I used the idea from J's
site to use egg white as a binder. I'm sure you all know the method
to get egg white from the yolk, it involves pouring the insides of the
yolk from one half of the egg shell to the other, and then back again,
letting the egg white flow into a standing bowl or whatever. Well,
once you have the egg white in a bowl (you can use the same bowl as you
did for the first step, if it is empty and dry) use a pastry brush or
painting brush to brush on the egg white to the fuse. Make sure that
you brush it in the direction that you rolled it in, or it will come
undone. Once you have done this, leave it under a desk lamp to dry,
and it will take quite a while to dry completely.
Once dry, it will be stiff, and you should check its burn rate to see if it has changed, although it doesn't with mine. If it burns unreliably, i.e. slowly, or goes out, try using a wider strip, say 6cm. But once you have done all this, and figured out what's best for you, you will be able to create VERY cheap fuses, I would say that they are less than 1p each, and they are reasonably reliable. |
