Before
you light it
An open flame above 1,000 °C, and a piece of metal that stays burning hot long after it goes out. Read this page in full before your first firing.
Adults only
This kit is not recommended for anyone under 18. It contains an open-flame torch and produces metal pieces heated to several hundred degrees.
It is not a toy, and it is not an activity to hand to a minor, even supervised. Between sessions, store the torch and the gas refill out of reach of children.
What you need within reach
None of this is optional. Get it all ready before you light up, not during.
A fire blanket or an extinguisher nearby is never wasted when you work with an open flame. Keep your phone within reach too: if you get burned, you will not feel like looking for it.
Three ways to get burned
The flame
The most obvious, and paradoxically the least common. The real danger is the reflex: catching something as it falls. Let what falls, fall.
Delayed contact
The most common by far. Metal stops glowing at around 500 °C: it no longer looks hot and it still burns badly. The firing brick holds its heat far longer than the piece does.
The steam
At quenching, the water flashes to steam. Keep your face back, lower the piece slowly, and always with the tongs.
The moves that matter
Cool it, immediately
Hold the area under cool running water — cool, not iced — for twenty minutes. It is the single most effective thing you can do, and it is almost always cut short.
Twenty minutes is a long time. Set a timer.
What you must never do
No ice, no butter, no toothpaste, no greasy ointment. Never burst a blister.
Take off your rings
Straight away, before the area swells. Including the one you have just made.
When to call emergency services
Call your emergency number — 112 across the European Union — if the burn is larger than the palm of your hand, if it blisters, if it is on the face, the hands or a joint, or if the skin is white, leathery or charred.
If in doubt, call. Advice costs nothing.
If clothing catches fire
Do not run: moving air fans the flames. Stop, drop to the ground, roll. Or smother the fire with a blanket.
One caveat
These instructions follow commonly accepted first-aid guidance. They do not replace medical advice, and they never remove the need to call emergency services when the situation calls for it.
How long before you touch it
The glow disappears at around 500 °C. Skin burns from 50 °C. Between the two there are four hundred and fifty degrees during which the piece looks cold and is not.
These times are for a piece of a few grams in a room at normal temperature. They cannot be judged by eye, and no better by bringing your hand close. When in doubt: the tongs.
Butane: refilling and storage
The torch ships empty: regulations forbid sending a charged lighter. You fill it with a butane lighter refill, sold everywhere.
Refill away from any flame, in a ventilated room, with the torch off and cold. Wait two minutes after filling before lighting, so the gas settles.
Store the cartridge upright, out of the sun, away from any heat source, and out of reach of children. Never in a car in summer.
Ask before you light up.
These instructions are also in the printed guide that comes with the kit.