Tin Can Trick?

[Intheswamp]

...and remember that if you burn aluminum cans then your stove might forget who you are.

 

[Renovation]

Well I didn't put much stock in it

Soup stock? %-P

 

[Dakotas Dad]

As a "top down cleaner", I am thinking about woodchucks.. they naturally burrow... pretty furry, and roundish..

 

[LLigetfa]

A tin can would last through many many fires without any change other than rust.

My mother used to burn the cans in the cookstove. It was my job to shake down the grates and take out the ashes. The thin part of the cans would burn but the rolled rims would survive and get caught up in the grates. She also burned scrap lumber and the nails would get caught in the grates too.

 

[fbelec]

hey what's wrong with a little pixey dust? keeps ya young :bug:

 

[remkel]

I usually throw a kicking jackalope in there when its good n hot. That little sucker kicks and claws his way out the chimney and its spotless. About mid season when there is too much snow on the roof is the best time! :lol:

Thanks for the laugh!

 

[Stephen in SoKY]

In a weird kind of homage to my Dad, I still occsionally throw a handful of tater peeling in on a wood fire. Doubt it helps. Know it doesn't hurt. But it does make me smile.

 

[maverick06]

The aluminium cans would just melt and fill gaps in the bottom with aluminium.... what a mess that must be! I wouldnt reccomend that.

As for the steel/tin cans. I havent melted them before. I have put them in the fireplace. But thats just because I am a bit of apyro and have decided it was a good way to dispose of used cooling oil. Oil into can, can onto the raging how coals. Not pouring oit out kept it more controlled. Probably not a really smart thing, but I am not claiming to be that smart.

Canola burns pretty controlled. Bacon fat... well that really turns the fireplace into the bowels of hades......

point being, the can easily survived all of that.

In the outside burnpit(I cant have anymore due to local regulations) when it was down to the coals i would put a soup can on and let it heat up. Soda/Beer cans fit perfectly inside the soup can. The alumium cans would melt down. Pretty good way to dispose of a few dozen cans.... now what to do with the disks of aluminum.....

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Every so often this comes up on the forum. Pure baloney!

btw, I also see several times people post that is is or was fairly common in the past. Again, pure baloney. Admittedly there have been some but no matter what field you are talking about you will get some folks who come up with weird ideas but they are few and far between. Then again, it comes into print occasionally and it did in the Mother Earth News. Just because they printed it does not mean it will work.

fwiw, I am considered an "old timer" of sorts and the first time I ever heard of such a dumb thing was in The Mother Earth News and the next time was on hearth.com. I have never talked with anyone, young or old, who actually did this as a normal thing. I also have been in thousands of homes, many with older folks burning wood and never had one say they did anything like that.

Gotta disagree with ya sav. I live out in the country and virtually everyone heats with wood to some degree. I have seem this done with some degree of frequency by a number of folks since the sixties. Does it work? I haven't a clue. But as with most folk remedies there is probably some grain of truth embedded in there somewhere. Maybe I should drop Mythbusters an email.

Then perhaps this is just a "southern" trick? Well, we too live in the country and have except for just a few months one year and we know of nobody who has ever tried it. And as I stated, I've been in thousands of homes, most of them rural homes that heated with wood. None of this baloney ever came up.

 

[fbelec]

ok. i threw in a diet coke can. i think aluminum. melted to a glob then put the glob in the middle of 6 splits and poof, it's gone. i'll know when i clean out the ashes next, but i dug and didn't feel or see any signs of it. went up to take a peek at the chimney this morning. the black shiney turned into a lighter color like there was some yellow mixed in and the creosote is now started to bubble and looks like it is starting to come away from the clay liner. i'll take a look the next time the snow leaves the roof. tried a veggie can. must be steel. took a real screaming hot fire and was still there so i took it out. who knows of a real tin can?
i just threw in a cat food can to see what happen to that. judging by what happened with the aluminum can and the creosote i might have to throw in a few more and see what happens. got nothing to lose at this point.

oh ya. the creosote also looked like a dark gray metallic paint job.