Man Made Wasps Nest

[sundog]

I have been working on trying to reproduce wasps nest paper. Yeah I know why bother , well I am out and cant find any so... I decided to give it a try. This is a work in progress and I would apreciate any input.

Two qualities of wasps nests that struck me as very important were its refusal to really burn with a flame and its no smolder no embers quality so those were major goals for me.

Here is a materials list
2 quart chinese take out soup containers with lids.
1 pint chinese takeout soup container with lid.
2 Sheets of newspaper torn into small bits.
water.
vineger.
Milk of Magneisia.
Ivory soap.
Electric drill and paint stirer attachment.
Used fabric softner sheets.
Window screen.
Here is what I did and why.
Tore the news paper into small bits. Put it into one of the quard soup containers andded 2/3rds water and 1/3 vinegar. Put the lid on and shook it to mix. I let it sit with occasional shakes for 3 days. The vinegar will gently break down fibers and sugars in the pulp.
Rinsed the mix and puured it back and forth between the quart containers. Took handfulls and squeesed out liquid and just kept rinsng till I could not smell vinegar any longer.
Put the now paper pulp/paper mache in a quart container and filled 3/4ths with water, ran the drill paint mixer again to re liquify. Gently poured off some water. Added aprox 6 oz of Milk of Magneisia. Mixed with the drill again.
Milk of Magneisia is a flame retardant. It will stop the material from burning with a flame when dry and in use- it will not burn with a flame but it will smolder. I let it sit for 2 days with occasional mixing.
Now I added aprox 1/4 of a bar of Ivory soap shaved up. This takes a couple of days to completely disolve even with the use of the drill paint sturer. The Ivory soap kills the burning ebmbers. You can light the finished product and the edge will ember for a few seconds but it quickly goes out just like a real wasps nest so the soap is important.
I placed the used fabric softener sheets on a horizontal window screen. Took a small quantity of the mix and put it into the pint Chinese soup container and added water and mixed till I had a liquid slurry, mostly water. Poured it onto the fabric softner sheets and let it drain and dry.
It takes a day to dry in my furnace room.
Oh finally its dry and you can peel the wasp paper off the fabric softener sheets.

Now you have it - test burn a bit and see if it performs as it is suposed to.

The short fall of this man made wasps nest material is it is not as tough as the real thing and it is thicker. Real wasps nest material has a silk like component added to it from the wasps saliva, this home made stuff is obviously lacking that, if anyone has any ideas ??????

Bottom line is it works, mash up a bit and use it as an over powder wad and ti works. The range test today with a TC .54 confirmed it.

Please if anyone has any ideas or feedback to make this stuff better let me know.

 

[RonT]

I use blown in insulation material. I spray with PAM untill I get the consistancy I want. First started using for Turkey loads in my Pedersoli 12 SXS.
R

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I've never used it but fiberglass insulation pulled off in wads in say, the size of a golf ball should do OK. or wadded up brown paper bag.

 

[trent/OH]

I think you've gone to extreme measures to duplicate a wasp (hornet) nest, but then again I saw not a single hornet nest this Autumn when the leaves fell.

 

[AeroncaTAL]

The short fall of this man made wasps nest material is it is not as tough as the real thing and it is thicker. Real wasps nest material has a silk like component added to it from the wasps saliva, this home made stuff is obviously lacking that, if anyone has any ideas ??????

What about running a rubber roller (you can get them at an art store) over the fabric softner sheets? Might thin it a bit more...
Scott

 

[Stumpkiller]

There's a huge one out in the brush lot beside my barn. I was saving it for myself but if you need one that badly . . .

I believe wasp "paper" is mud, plant fiber and wasp spit. It would be tough to duplicate.

Go to a hobby store and buy some of the "recovery wadding" that goes between the rocket engine and the parachute. ;-)

 

[sniper68]

1-Dec-07 11:10 - Post#494043


Give this a try, I like it much better than felt wads and they work as good as Wasp nest. Felt wads need to be overbore size to work properly. These will be flattened out, just like the nest when the ball is seated and when fired will be forced around the ball into the grooves. This is uncombed raw hemp fibers. It is stronger than the degummed and combed hemp, plus even with no lube it still won't burn, like wasp nest. Melt a little batch of lube(a little goes a long way, you'll see )throw the hemp in the lube. Take it out, put it between two pieces of plastic wrap and with a rolling pin, roll out as much lube as you can. Then pinch off enough to roll into a ball about the size of the cal. that your using. Easy to make, carry and load. Towballs!!
Hemp[url] traders.com[/url]. Click on hemp fibers and or samples.

 

[tippyguru]

:wink: gotta admire the old ways, hemp was in abundence,the old folk would have tried evry thing as they had nothing to spare and had to use everything that was good :v

 

[Mike Brooks]

You know they make cards and wads commercially these days.....Cheap too.

 

[roundball]

Sundog, I admire anyone who puts forth the kind of effort you obviously are putting into this home made wasp nest project...but I am puzzled by it and am asking only for the rationale behind it...it may be nothing more than an interesting project to undertake which is fine by itself.

For example, I recently brought back 3 Hornet's nests from my Sister's so I could personally experiment with it like the settlers used it, to get direct hands on experience with it, etc...even planning to use it while out Turkey hunting this spring...completely understand the interest of wanting to try the real thing.

What I'm puzzled about is the interest in trying to duplicate nature's wasp nests with a manmade substitute...even if the results are satisfactory, you still won't be shooting "natural wasp nest material" like they did back in the day, and wouldn't be making the claim that you were I'm sure.

So if the end result is using artificial manmade wads in the first place, it seems like it would be simpler to just use manmade Oxyoke or Circle Fly wads...just curious about the driving force behind a project like this...

 

[MSW]

hey thanks!

that's way cool... gotta give that a try!

 

[mazo kid]

Roundball, I think Sundog was doing this as a stop-gap method of getting something close to the wasp nest material; he says he didn't find any this fall. I'll have to go out in the woods and see if I can find any. I know there is a small nest in my shop...been waiting for it to get cold so I can harvest it. Guess the time is now as Winter is here in full force. Emery

 

[gsptarget]

Can someone educate me?
I read this whole thread and still have no idea what is trying to be accomplished nor for what pupose?

I never heard of nest paper in conjunction with muzzleloading

 

[roundball]

Back in the old days a variety of natural materials were used as wads in shotguns...leaves, tow, wasp's nest material, hornet's nest material, etc.

This individual has temporarily run out of natural wasp's nest material and for a project took on the challenge of experimenting / attempting to make a man-made 'wasp nest material' as a substitute...

 

[SimonKenton]

A solution of sodium silicate can be applied to paper and when it dries the paper will not smolder. It will burn if ignited but extinguish the moment the flame is gone. Same stuff they coat the toilet paper that is used as parachute wadding in model rockets. :hmm:

-Ray

 

[FPDoc]

Sodium silicate is "water glass" isn't it? Just checking.

 

[SimonKenton]

Never heard the term but if I set the wayback machine to the Dark Ages when I was terrorizing the nabe with my chem set that's what we used to soak a hankie in and then set it on fire to show it would go out.

-Ray

 

[Runner]

Of course you could just tear a piece off of a pre-lubed fiber shotgun wad and ram it before the ball. The lube keeps it from igniting and it works very well to keep smoldering wads or patches from causing fires. If you do that, the fouling stays very soft also.

 

[AdirondakDD]

Yes
"One common example of its use as a paper cement was for producing paper cartridges for black powder revolvers produced by Colt's Manufacturing Company during the period from 1851 until 1873, especially during the American Civil War. Sodium silicate was used to seal combustible nitrated paper together to form a conical paper cartridge to hold the black powder, as well as to cement the lead ball or conical bullet into the open end of the paper cartridge. Such sodium silicate cemented paper cartridges were inserted into the cylinders of revolvers, thereby speeding the reloading of cap and ball black powder revolvers. This use largely ended with the introduction of Colt revolvers employing brass-cased cartridges starting in 1873.

When used as a paper cement, the tendency is for the sodium silicate joint eventually to crack within a few years, at which point it no longer holds the paper surfaces cemented together."

Wikipedia