A fire made from one log. Swedish or Finnish candle: The simplest DIY fireplace

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A Finnish candle is a kind of mini-bonfire made from a small stump or a piece of log. It is used for cooking in a boiler and heating water. It can be a good replacement for a regular fire during evening gatherings in nature. You can make a Finnish candle with your own hands in just 20 minutes; the burning time is about half an hour.

Features of the manufacture and use of Finnish candles

To prepare a Finnish (Swedish, Indian) candle you will need a small stump or block. The easy-to-make device can be used for lighting and even for short-term decoration of open areas. Tourists most often use it as a portable light source or for cooking. It takes a little time to create a candle, but the duration of burning and the heat generated from it are optimal for preparing porridge or boiling water on a hike.

Features of preparing a mini-bonfire

It will allow you to conveniently saw a block of wood preliminary preparation: in its center it is necessary to drill a hole with a diameter of about 2-3 cm.

The same procedure must be carried out with a stump or log. bigger size and weight. A stick is inserted into the hole on the main block (can be replaced with a branch). A log with large parameters is strung onto an installed stick. Such a counterweight will allow you to make a candle carefully and safely. After connecting the logs and placing them on the sawhorse for sawing firewood, work is carried out according to the following instructions:

1. The log is cut crosswise using an electric or gasoline saw. The depth of the cut should be no more than 2/3 of the height of the entire block.

2. Using a regular lit candle, cover the side parts and the bottom of the cut with paraffin (or wax).

3. Cut a small strip of paper (newspaper can be used) with a length 4-5 cm greater than the cutting depth. It is folded in half, then unfolded, and paraffin shavings are poured over the fold. It is important to take into account that the layer should be made large, but so that the paper then easily rolls up and the paraffin itself does not spill out.

4. The paper with paraffin is wrapped lengthwise. And with the help of a pencil, a thick knitting needle or a screwdriver, it is pushed into the cross-shaped cut. It is important to carry out the procedure carefully so as not to damage the paper or spill paraffin. 4-5 cm of paper with paraffin should remain above the log.

5. The resulting wick is fixed with molten paraffin. To do this, you need to light a regular candle and pour a melting compound where the wick joins the wood. At this stage, the Finnish candle will be completely ready.

To get a burning log, the performer only needs to set fire to the manufactured wick. Thanks to the presence of paraffin inside, the log will burn more slowly and the temperature will be maintained. You can make a Finnish candle with your own hands in just 15-20 minutes. If the performer does not have an electric or gasoline saw, then the cuts should be made manually. The made mini-bonfire can be used on hikes (it is important to consider the weight of the candle) or for home camping.

The attached photo and video materials will help you ensure that the Finnish candle you make will burn brightly. But the performer must take into account that the cuts in the log should not be too deep: in this case, it will burn out very quickly. It is equally important to place the block of wood on the tile or metal plate. This will eliminate the risk of fire in the dry vegetation surrounding it. If there are no special stands, you can install the candle on an earthen area that has previously been cleared of grass and leaves.

Anyone who loves outdoor recreation (especially not a picnic, but an active one - hunting, fishing, hiking) knows how important a properly lit fire is. If you don’t carry a barbecue with you, you need to worry about safety so that you don’t have to run away from a forest fire and feel like a criminal. And lighting a fire in the snow, so that it doesn’t go out every minute, seems to many to be the pinnacle of fire-making skills. However, experienced travelers know how to build a fireplace in a fire-safe manner so that it burns for a long time, does not go out even in slush, and does not require regular feeding. Everyone calls it differently: Finnish candle, taiga candle, Indian or Swedish, but the essence remains the same. There are even several ways to make it.

Maxi-bonfire

The Finnish candle is most successful if you “land” not far from sawn logs. No effort is required: select three saw cuts of approximately the same height and diameter, place them in a circle close to each other and light a fire in the middle. In order for the fire to burn evenly and the burnout to be the same in all directions, you need to choose the logs wisely in height. The Finnish candle lasts the longest; the logs should be twice their diameter in length. The power of such a fire is enough to boil a five-liter boiler in a third of an hour, and you don’t even need to hang it - it will rest on the logs themselves. As the logs burn, they seem to form into a hut. If you need a Finnish candle fire for a long time, at this stage you can maintain it as usual, by adding firewood.

If you have a chainsaw

If there is no need for such a large hearth and the presence of an appropriate tool on your hands, you can do otherwise. A piece of thick log half a meter long is taken and sawed crosswise (not all the way, about three-quarters of the length). If the diameter of the cut is large, you can work with the chainsaw a little more to get eight “slices”. You should not make more cuts, because the narrower the sector, the faster your Finnish candle will burn out. The log is firmly fixed to the ground (you can dig it in or support it with stones), kindling is placed inside (from sawdust, or just liquid ignition) - and for several hours the fire is at your service.

Field method

Suppose there is no saw, but do you need a Finnish one in this case? Well, there is an ax in nature anyway. The log of wood chosen for this purpose is split like regular firewood, only a little more diligently so that the logs do not vary too much in thickness. Then they gather into the original log, only around a thick branch - this will be the hearth. Below, closer to the ground, and approximately in the middle, the Finnish candle is tied, preferably with wire - it will definitely not burn out. But if you don’t have it, twine, fishing line, and flexible rods will do. It is especially important to tighten it securely at the bottom, since in the middle the logs will burn out faster, and without good fixation near the ground, your fire will fall apart. The central branch is pulled out three-quarters from below and sawed off, after which the Finnish candle is placed on the ground. By the way, if the original log is not too massive, you can use this branch as a leg and simply stick it into the ground.

Hand candle

If there is no nearby (either a suitable dry object for sawing, or a saw or even a normal ax), then the Finnish one is made a little differently. Quite thick poles, at least five centimeters in diameter, are collected around the area and gathered into a bunch, again around the center branch. The side of the poles that will be inside needs to be cut a little with a knife - it will work better. The rest of the manipulations are the same as when creating a “finca” from logs.

Primus candle

It is used specifically as a stove for cooking. The main points are the same as when making a fire-candle using the field method. There are two nuances:

1. The original log must be partially hollowed out from the inside. Alternatively, you can not plan the core, but split it into logs and peel them. Such a fire is assembled in the snow using the same method, around a branch, but the cavity inside must be made artificially, and the outer walls are closed, if possible, without cracks.
2. On two opposite sides, the logs are either trimmed less or pushed upward more, by five to six centimeters. Due to this design, the fire in the center will be fanned by air, and its tongues will be directed predominantly upward.

Such a Finnish candle is not suitable for heating - the fire is all concentrated inside. But the food cooks much faster.

What can a Finnish candle be useful for?

In addition to cooking and heating (except for the Primus stove), such a fire is simply irreplaceable as a beacon. Experienced fishermen who go out at dawn leave it on the shore as a signal for those who are late - in the dark it can be seen from afar.

It is very convenient when using Finnish candles that almost until they completely burn out, they can be moved from place to place without difficulty and without causing burns. The long-lasting nature of the fire can be considered a significant advantage: a medium-sized log provides light and heat for about four hours. And a maxi-fire without additional fuel can perform its functions all night long.

If you are not a fan of “wild” tourism and fishing, but you like to meet New Year at the dacha, Finnish candles placed along the paths will bring romance and decorate the garden no worse than garlands and Chinese lanterns.

Fans of outdoor activities, as well as hunters and fishermen, know how important it is to properly build a fire in order not only to keep warm, but also to cook camp food on it. This is especially important in winter or in slushy conditions, when you constantly need to add firewood and make sure that the fire does not go out. Give warmth and light for a long time, and also provide fire safety in nature, a Finnish candle will allow, other names of which are taiga, Swedish, Indian. This fire design is easy to move without fear of burns, and it can burn all night. How to make a Finnish candle will be described in detail below.

Cooking with a Finnish candle

An effective candle for burning is a log with a diameter of 12 cm and a height of more than 18 cm. When building a fire, the type of wood used does not matter, but it is better not to use conifers due to the release of resin, which sparks and cracks. In other cases, the main thing is that the wood used is dry, but not rotten. The proportions of a Finnish candle depend on its purpose: for heating it is more convenient to use a thick and long log, for lighting it is more convenient to use a long and thin log for ease of carrying, and for cooking the candle should be thick and short.

Finnish candle for cooking

Finnish candle: how to make, video

The most in a simple way is the so-called camping, or - making a Finnish candle from a ready-made log, if any were found in the forest. You need to select three cuts of the same size and place them in a circle close to each other. A fire is lit in the middle. Uniform burning in all directions will be ensured the right choice chock in height, which should be two diameters of the logs in width. If you place a three-liter pot on these logs, it will boil in less than half an hour. As the logs burn out, they will need to be placed in a “hut”, and then simply add firewood.

If it is possible to use a chainsaw, you can make a Finnish candle yourself in the following way: take a thick log at least 50 cm long and cut it crosswise in the middle to about three-quarters of its height. If the log is too wide, you can make cuts so that the log is divided into eight “slices”. If you make more of them, then the Finnish candle will burn out faster. The log needs to be well secured to the ground, supported by stones or slightly dug into an earthen depression. Sawdust, dry fuel or a mixture for ignition are placed inside the cuts.

If you don’t have a chainsaw, you can make a Finnish candle using an axe. The log splits like a regular wood splitter, only into identical logs. Then they are gathered together and tied at the bottom with wire. A thick branch is inserted into the middle of the hearth, which serves as a kind of wick for a Finnish candle. If the log is not too large, a branch can be stuck into the ground, then it will act as a leg for the fire.

If there is no tool nearby, you can assemble a Finnish candle with your own hands. Thick poles with a diameter of at least 5 cm are collected and installed around the branch in the same way as the method described above. On inside The pole located in the center needs to be scored with a knife so that it ignites faster.

You can watch the video on how to place a Finnish candle correctly.

How to make a Finnish Primus candle with your own hands for cooking

The Finnish Primus candle is used only for cooking, since its heat is not enough to heat it. Its difference from a regular Finnish candle is as follows:

• The log should have a notch inside if it is whole. If the fire is assembled from individual logs, they can be planed in the middle, then connected as described earlier, secured with rope or wire so that they fit tightly together, forming an outer side without gaps.
• The logs located opposite each other are trimmed or pushed up a little more than the others by 5-6 cm. Made in this way, they form a structure that allows the fire to be fanned by air, while the flame will be directed predominantly upward.

Thus, the fire is concentrated inside the structure, giving off heat to instant cooking food. For cooking, it is better to chop the log into four parts, not eight. If possible, it is better to place the fire on stones or logs so that there is a gap for air below. Otherwise, you can cut a small air duct from the bottom of the logs. It should be taken into account that the hearth concentrated in the upper part of the logs will burn long time, but not too intensely, and when ignited from below, the fire will be stronger, but the candle will burn faster.

Somehow in summer holidays, and as always unexpectedly, the gas cylinder at the dacha ran out. An old electric stove and microwave oven came to the rescue. What if there was no electricity? I've heard a lot about Swedish fire, which is made from dry logs and is said to be convenient for cooking. The design is simple - a dry log is sawn from the end along the axis two or more times. I decided to check the operation of this thing as an emergency heat source.

Preparing the log

I made two cuts from the end of a piece of dry pine log with a chainsaw. A log is taken with a diameter of 23 cm and a length of 60 cm, the cut is made to a depth of 40 cm. If the log is placed on its butt, then a flat area remains on top on which you can place a pot or frying pan.

If you are going to cook food, then the log should be installed steadily so that it does not move if accidentally impacted. Lighting a fire is simple - pour a small amount of lighter fluid into the center. It is enough to water the edges of the cuts from above. We set fire to the log. At first, the fire is supported by the liquid and combustion occurs in the upper part of the log, but as it warms up, the flame goes down and intense combustion begins and the flame bursts out of the crack with a characteristic noise.

Finnish candle - simple and effective for boiling water and cooking in the field.

Its essence lies in the fact that two longitudinal cuts are made in the log, perpendicular to each other, as a result of which an X-shaped crosshair is formed at the end. The depth and number of cuts depends on the desired time and intensity of combustion. The positive thing about this configuration is that you can choose total length logs and the depth of the cuts, thanks to which you have the opportunity to raise the burning part of the log above the surface or snow to the required height if you do not want your fire to fall into the snow or leave noticeable scorches on the ground. Commercial and field representatives of this configuration are often cut with a chainsaw, the chain of which is wide enough so that such a Finnish spark plug can be easily ignited later.

However, my attempts to make it using a folding camp saw were not successful, and I see the reasons for this as follows:

• The thickness of the saw is small, which is why the existing cuts do not provide the proper air flow to ignite the insides of the log.
• Inability to influence the processes occurring inside the log. A log with cuts is a kind of monolith that cannot be moved apart or looked inside. Everything that falls back into the cut is unlikely to be removed, again due to their small width. If you make a mistake, there is no way to correct it and, most likely, you will have to break the existing one or cut another log.
• Smooth cuts of wood inside the cuts, which is why it burns poorly. The flame emitted by the kindling in the early stages of combustion is not sufficient for tangential ignition, and the combustion temperature is not yet sufficient to burn the fibers deep.
• When the cuts are densely filled with kindling (sawdust, leaves, bark fragments, etc.), the air flow is further blocked, thereby disturbing the balance.

In addition to attempting primary ignition (by igniting kindling inside the cuts), I also tried secondary ignition (using coals from another fire), but although success increases, such a Finnish candle requires another fire, as well as an impressive amount of time for burning and fanning. Not that this is a pleasant and 100% reliable option.

In general, I consider this configuration not the best. If you have a chainsaw - yes, but only with a camping saw - it is better to use other configurations. Wider holes can theoretically be obtained by making not one, but two cuts on each side at a distance of about a centimeter from each other, with further removal of the wood between them. But in this case, I consider the labor costs too significant and ineffective to even start doing this. In addition, for this configuration you generally need to have a saw with you, otherwise longitudinal cuts in a log it’s not possible at all.

Finnish candle - configuration 2

This configuration eliminates most of the problems with narrow cuts and the need for a saw, because To create it, you can get by with an ax, or even just a knife if you don’t have any other tools. Moreover, for this configuration, not only a smoothly sawn log will be suitable, but also its severed counterpart, which will not have such a smooth surface.

With an ax or knife using and/or, the log is split into quarters. If they are not completely even, it’s not critical, because... We are interested, first of all, in the possibility of installing dishes on top of a Finnish candle, and not in appearance.

Next, on the inner surfaces of each quarter, using the same ax or knife, many notches should be made, peeling off part of the wood in the form of splinters and feathers. Their direction should be opposite to the direction of fire movement, i.e. the fire inside the log should flare up not along the chips, but “against the grain.” This wood chips will subsequently play the role of kindling for the Finnish candle, significantly accelerating and simplifying its ignition.

The next step is to cover the treated quarters with soil and tie them with wire or rope at the bottom, which provides the necessary support and stability when placing the utensils on top of the log. After fixing, the spaces between the quarters are filled with kindling and small combustible materials (sawdust, leaves, pine needles, bark fragments, etc.)

The significant advantage of this configuration over the previous one is the following positive aspects:

• The ability to influence the width of the gap between the quarters of the log. They filled too much kindling and blocked the flow of air - the quarters can always be moved apart and some of the materials removed, after which the soil can be compacted again and one step back. This Finnish candle forgives some mistakes that the previous configuration does not allow.
• Notches on the inner surface of the quarters flare up much faster and easier than the smooth walls from the previous configuration due to the increased contact surface. Thanks to this, less external kindling is required.

Among other things, this configuration ignites equally well using primary (ignition with tinder and kindling) and secondary ignition (with coals from another fire). So, in the photo above, several coals were simply thrown into the Finnish candle, and then everything happened by itself. There was no need to inflate anything, because... To control the air flow, simply move the quarters apart to the required width. The notches inside the log quickly raise the flame above its surface, and the Finnish candle goes into its working mode.

Finnish candle - configuration 3

This configuration requires the most materials to create, but it also has the highest efficiency and run time in my experience.

For the third configuration of the Finnish candle, you will need as many as three logs of approximately the same length. Fortunately, it is almost always possible to cut them from one tree trunk. The length and diameter of the logs are selected based on the desired operating time and the duration of cooking of certain dishes.

Try to choose a log without bark, or additionally debark it before proceeding. Bark is a tree’s natural protection from many negative factors, including fire, so logs with bark, due to their increased density, flare up much worse. On outside For three of the six log halves you will need to make notches that are already familiar to you from the previous configuration. They, as in the previous case, will act as kindling and help spread the flame over a large area inside the future Finnish candle.

After the notches are made, place the halves with them in the shape of a triangle, with the notches inward. Remember also that the flame inside the Finnish candle should go against the “wool” formed by the notches. With the remaining three halves, prop up the notched halves as shown in the photo above.

Next, the channel inside the three halves should be filled with tinder and kindling and ignited. Until the moment when the logs themselves ignite, you will get some kind of semblance inside the logs, therefore in the early stages you will observe mainly a large number of smoke coming out of the bowels of a Finnish candle.

But as the temperature rises and the coal base accumulates, the logs themselves will light up, and your Finnish candle will go into its operating mode, accompanied by a high flame. This design resembles an eternal flame, with long tongues of flame and a clearly distinguishable roar during operation. But this configuration is good not only, and not so much as the ability to replace logs as they burn out. This is not a monolith (like configuration 1), there are no connected or twisted elements (like in configuration 2), so you can replace any of the burnt-out internal logs with one of the spacer halves at almost any time. All that is necessary for this is to lift the dishes from the Finnish candle, take one of the supports, place it in place with the burnt inner log and lower the pot or frying pan back. The place of the support can be taken by the next half, prepared for the next replacement of logs.

In terms of labor costs, efficiency, success and flexibility of the organization, the Finnish candle in this configuration seemed to me the most effective. You do it independent choice, and feel free to share your experience of organizing a Finnish candle in the comments.