We have purchased some of you funky flames, and used them in a campfire. We are totallly disappointed in them as they barely showed any color for even two minutes, and they are truely overpriced. We would not recommend them to anyone.

We have purchased some of your funky flames and used them in a campfire. We are totally dissapointed in them as they barely showed any color and only lasted two minutes. We also think they are way overpriced, and wouldn’t recommend them to anyone.

Kathy,

It’s good to know that they don’t work well. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Have you tried placing a piece of copper tubing inside a piece of garden hose? We usually take about a 3″ piece of each and place it in the fire. It lasts about 20 minutes. I”m not exactly sure what the reaction is that takes place between the hose and the copper tubing but it’s important to place the copper tubing inside the hose so you want to make sure you get tubing that will fit inside the hose - snugly is best. That’s what we’ve done while camping for years. We always use old garden hose and we have a 10 foot tube of copper tubing that we’ve used for the past 5 years and still have a lot of it left.

I just heard about the funky flames this year but haven’t tried them because I haven’t been able to buy them anywhere.

THE FUNKY FLAMES DO NOT WORK AT ALL. I WOULD NOT SUGGEST THEM TO ANYONE!!!

A number of years ago, my family used the hose and copper tube idea. It worked well, but we stopped using them because some in our group said they got sick from it. I don’t remember getting sick, but that would make sense since you are buring rubber.

The funky flames were so neat…….for 2 minutes. Very disappointed for the price I paid for them and so were the kids.

We have used the copper tube and garden hose trick a few times ourselves. The only difference for us is that we take the copper tube and put the garden hose inside …. opposite of what you say you do. Works great … but don’t roast marshmallows at the same time. They will taste rubbery (and probably are not good for you either!)

CamperDave,

I asked my brother in law, who is a chemistry teacher, if it mattered which was inside the other and why both copper tubing and garden hose were important components.
He said he thinks the garden hose is just there to help get a hotter flame going which helps the copper tubing produce more color and more color variety.
He didn’t think it mattered which was inside the other but said that on our family camping trip next month we should try an experiment (I guess he’s curious too).
We’re going to try three things:
We’re going to do garden hose inside the copper tubing like you do; copper tubing inside the garden hose, and copper tubing without any garden hose because he thinks the hose is just there to produce a hotter fire and that it may not make that much difference in color production if it’s not present.
Cuz, like you said, the garden hose gives marshmallows a funny taste, and it smells too.

I was very disappointed in the Funky Flames product. Like the others state, the colors only lasted 2 minutes, and they were not at all as bright and big and the picture on the box showed. Paid about $5.50 for them, and would ask for my money back if possible.

The “Funky Flames” you speak of, cool idea - 3 packages of Sodium Bicarbonate & whatever else for 4.95 at your wal-mart… pretty disappointing - used it up at a GS camp a few weeks before finding this blog - the colors were there, I believe the reaction has some thing to do with the heat of the fire - my suggestion get some napkins & pour baking soda in one, pepto bismol tabs in another, use the garden hose + copper tubing trick. make your own funky flames…
some one told me steel wool burns a red flame -
Happy Fires!

I heard about the copper pipe/garden house trick last summer from an RV campsite grounds keeper. His version had the garden house inside the copper tube and the copper tube had several holes drilled all around for the full length of the tube (about 18 inches). I didn’t get to see the gizmo in action, but I’m hoping to try it out on a camping trip in 2 weeks. Not toasting marshmellows at the same time sounds like a valid tip. Thanks.

I have tried the copper in hose and it gives a lot of neat colors, but i got tired of trying to get the copper inside the hose and just started putting both in the fire near each other and found I get the same reaction

Well, I had a chance to try the copper pipe and garden hose and it worked amazingly well.

I bought a 3/4 diameter copper pipe about 2 feet long. I then used my drill press to drill 3/8 inch holes in a checkerboard pattern the full length of the pipe.

I then cut a 1/2″ garden hose into sections about 1′ 11″ long and inserted one into the pipe.

When the fire was nice and hot, we stuck the pipe horizontally into the fire stack. Witin a minute or two the flames started turning blue and green. There were still normal colored flames, but it was the blue and green that stole the show. These lasted for about 45 minutes (probably because of amount of hose in there)

Once they stopped, we pulled the pipe out of the fire, let it cool off, cleaned it out with a branch (some crusty ashes in there), stuck in another section of hose and put it back in the fire and off it went again.

There was no ‘burning rubber’ smell nor did the smoke hurt our eyes anymore than normal. Of course we waited until after the kids were done with their ’smores and didn’t allow them to get real close to the fire just to be on the safe side.

Try it. I highly recommend it.

The copper hose & hose work. We also use old coated copper wire. Any type seems to work old extension cords,light cords,house wireing etc. wrap it up and put it into a hot fire. We use hollow logs up right to make a chimney once it is burning hot toss some wire in. The plus is at the current prize of copper you can sell the wire for scrap after the coating is burnt off.( We got $170 for the last we took in)

I heard that burning garden hose is toxic, and environmentally degrading… Is this true?

Joe,

I did a little research and you’re right. Burning garden hose (or any other type of rubber or plastic) does release toxic pollutants into the air.

We won’t be burning garden how and copper tubing in our campfires anymore.

Regards,

Doreen

We did not see ANY color from these so-called “Funky Colored Flames”. I would tell people not to bother wasting their money on these… would have been awesome if it worked!

It was my wonderful sister-in-law’s 55th birthday on May 22nd. She is a real nature buff and loves being around a camp-fire. She has been in a depressed state, so I thought that buying some “Funky Flames” and planning a bon-fire would be perfect for her.

I had bragged about this to the people in attendance. As soon as we had a respectable fire going, all 9 of us were anxiously waiting for these magical “Funky Flames”. They advise putting 3 pouches (@ $2.00 per package) onto your bon-fire and I put on five to make sure. Imagine the disappointment and embarrassment after finding that NOTHING HAPPENED to the bon-fire flames!

SAVE YOUR MONEY — THESE DO NOT WORK! JUST GLAD I DIDN’T USE THE OTHER FIVE.

The funky flames are not worth it–but if you have a lot of extra cash to blow, pickup eight boxes and put them on the fire. I promise you, they’ll work. They need to be in the middle of the fire for best results.

Even then though it worked; eight boxes for 20 minutes of light show magic? Not worth it.. If you really want to muck with changing flames the hose idea works the best but it does stink if you’re downwide of it.

What duds the Funky Colored Flames are. No color flames at all. The box said we would have 30 minutes of Blue, Green and Purple. Wow, that is so not true. I am going to bring the box back to Wal-mart and demand my money back and I will tell everyone I know what a rip off Funky Colored Flames are.

The garden hose material that you seek is to make this colored flame work well is poly vinyl chloride (PVC). When combined with the copper it will produce very lovely flames. When you burn this material it releases several gases. One of those gases being phosgene gas. Perhaps you have heard of this gas. It was quite popular during World War I where it was used as a chemical weapon. I will take my campfires without any nerve gas please.

I also bought the “Funky Flames” thinking that it would be cool to freak out my friends while we were camping. but very little happened the tips of the flame did get a little color and the base where the package was burning a little color but only lasted maybe 2 minutes i too am very disapointed and wouldn’t recommend wasting the 5 bucks on a product like this

I agree! Those things are a total waste of money. Talk about feeling duped!

THIS PRODUCT IS A HORRIBLE IDEA THE COPPER TUBING IS KING BUT DON’T GO AND SPEND 5$ TO GET THE WORST LIGHT SHOW I HAVE EVER SEEN. THE PICTURE ON THE BOX LIES DON’T LET THE LIES KILL YOUR WALLET!

I read where the 3 basic ingredients used to make
“Funky Flames” was sodium chloride (salt),
potassium chloride and copper sulfate. All of which can be bought for a lot less elsewhere. I have not tried this yet but maybe using greater amounts than what comes in the overpriced box of “Funky Flames”, might be the answer. Sure would be a lot cheaper.
Information reference came from the following site.
http://thismaterialworld.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/funky-flames/

We burned an old Christmas net light set that only half of the lights worked on. The colors were great- the smell of burning plastic, not so much. The smell didn’t last long- not near as long as the colors from the wire. I was worried about the pollution aspect and would like to try something like this again next summer at our family camp. Any other ideas? As far as funky colors go; 10-15 years ago my children and I made fireplace baskets and bought fire sprinkles at a fireplace store and they worked great. I cant remember the name of the product- let me know if you want more info on this and I will do some research!

Yes, we were given them as a gift along with some other camp gear. We got no different fire than before they were put on the fire. Is there nothing at all you can do about this? It is definitely false advertising.
Thanks for the insight.

Try putting an old VW engine block in your camp fire and see what happens . Do not look directly at the light this gives off as it will damage your eyes . Also do not stand too close with bare skin as this will cause serious sun burn and some . Do not do this close to vehicles ,tents ,gas bottles , camping gear or pets ect ,ect. OH and what ever you do do not try to put it out with water this can be explosive