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Looking For A Large Plastic Cauldron Where Can I Find One

Halloween Prop Help: Smoking Cauldron Candy Bowl?

Your ghoulish heart is in the right place, and for that I commend you. You've also thought about problems and difficulties. But not all.

Dry ice is so cold it can burn flesh. So it would not be a good idea to have little hands reaching in anywhere near it to grab a candybar.

Dry ice performs best in hot water, otherwise it freezes over (voice of experience). Solution: crock pot. But the drawback is that you'll have to keep adding water. And keep adding ice because a little doesn't go far.

So now we've got something hot and something that can burn flesh along with little hands. I assume you see where I'm going with this. If you are bent on using dry ice, I'd suggest putting your cauldron on a stool, putting your crock pot of ice and hot water easily accessible so that you can refresh it as needed, and running a tube between your crock pot and the cauldron, with perhaps a small fan in order to pull the fog from the pot to the kettle. (There's a joke in there somewhere about pots and kettles and the color black, but I digress).

Starts to sound like a lot of work, right? Well, have you seen some of those "new age" or fantasy fountains with mist around the base? This is created with a sonic mister that, in just a couple inches of water, creates a flowing fog that is non-toxic and water based. Some of these devices include led lights as well. I would imagine that if you bought a large one intended for a pond and then used it in the confined space of your cauldron it would generate quite a bit of fog.

Of course, there are drawbacks as well. These misters tend to bubble and spit a bit, so your candybar wrappers might get a little soggy. But that's a ton better than burnt little fingers and sobbing children. You can buy mist makers locally; I've seen them at craft stores. I've linked a bunch on Ebay. Enjoy.

I've also linked a couple of my favorite Halloween prop sites. You'll have more projects than time to complete them all.

Can I put dry ice in a plastic cauldron?

Put a metal container in the cauldron, and put the dry ice in the metal container.

Some plastics will hold up to the dry ice, some won't, and unless you know exactly what sort of plastic you have, it's impossible to tell.

And be CAREFUL when you're handling that dry ice! Never handle it with your bare hands! Not if you like your hands the way they are now.

Where can I find a huge plastic WITCH'S CAULDRON?

You're not going to find one that large in stores or on the net. You'll have to make or rent it.

I made one that size using chicken wire, spray glue, and newspaper. I used a plastic round patio table to give me a size reference, put the chicken wire around the edge of the table and across the top (making the cauldron upside down). I put several layers on, then removed the table and set the cauldron upright. The whole thing sagged, giving it that cauldron shape, plus is scrunched in the "neck". More layers of newspaper, rolled the top edge to give it a lip and spray painted it.

Is it okay to put a crockpot in a plastic cauldron?

I can use the crockpot to heat water to make fog with some dry ice I have, but I don't just wanna put the crockpot out on the front porch, so I'm gonna hide it inside a large plastic cauldron.

Is this okay? The cauldron isn't gonna melt or anything is it?

My mom never cleans her frying pans after cooking and every time I use them there's usually black ash all over them. She sometimes cooks with the black residue on it as well. Is this sanitary?

A good cook / chef knows that you should never wash your frying pans / woks / skillets etc.First, you need to season them.This involves setting half a day aside if you're going to do it properly.And, here's how to do it:Throw in a good amount of rock salt, cracked pepper corns, chopped ginger, scallions and crushed garlic.Add a good glug of cooking oil.Heat wok on your highest heat setting and rub the above around covering the entire surface until it's smoking.Remove from heat, wipe with kitchen tissue and allow to cool.Two things have now happened. When you heated the wok, the pores of the metal opened up (just like our skin when we get hot and sweat) and the oil seeps inside. When it cools, the pores close again trapping that oil inside.Repeat the above cycle until the entire wok has turned from its brand new silver to jet black.The black is just carbon.Now, you will find a huge improvement in the taste of your food. For example, you know that smokey taste in fried rice we get from the local Chinese restaurant? That's because their woks are seasoned to perfection.Once your wok is seasoned properly, you should NEVER need to wash it. It will be completely non-stick, and whatever you cook in it, you should only need to wipe it out with tissue.If you cook something heavy like a stew, use a little water but NEVER use soap.

Is it safe to burn a piece of paper inside of a plastic bowl?

I wouldn't risk it. Plastic, if it's too thin, will melt, and in any case, you shouldn't heat plastic at all because burning plastic releases toxic fumes that can be dangerous to inhale. Don't use plastic. A safer bet is anything ceramic or metal (though, depending on the quality of metal, you may leave a charred mark on the metal, but this is preferable to inhaling toxic fumes or setting the house on fire because you used plastic). You don't have any ceramic? No soup bowls, mixing bowls, coffee mugs? Even if you have glass versions of these things, it would be safer because they'd be made of thicker glass that is heat resistant and wouldn't shatter due to the flame. Basically, if you'd feel comfortable sticking it in the oven to bake something, it's safe to use with fire...There is not a single plastic thing I'd ever feel safe sticking in the oven.
Venus and Hermes Bless

Has anyone had an inexplicable reaction to a chopped salad?

My husband had an inexplicable reaction to my lovely “creation” not very long ago, but I didn't expect him to freak out about it. It's just a salad, afterall. As a vegetarian I literally try to “mix things up” (see what I did there?)I don't like my veggies to go to waste so I simply threw in everything I had: cucumbers, grapes, cherry tomatoes, olives, dried cranberries, tangerines, apples, some kale, mixed greens, rotini pasta, cheeses and I even put cooked chicken on his plate. I dressed it with a cilantro vinaigrette, and a lovely expensive olive oil and topped it with some pine nuts. I know it is not customary to mix fruit and vegetables in a salad, but whoever made up that dumb rule is missing out. That was a good salad! I might leave out the tangerines next time, they were too sour with the sweetness of everything else, but I'll do it again. My husband thought it was weird and didn't like that I mixed fruits and vegetables. He asked me to make up my mind next time. Pasta salad, green salad OR fruit salad. Those are my three choices according to him. He is a traditional kind of guy. But I'm not. I'm free to be as weird and creative as I want in the kitchen. I'm proud to call myself a “Kitchen Witch” and if that takes creating new concoctions in my “salad cauldron” so be it.

I need to make a big BIG witches cauldron?

By big BIG I assume you mean larger than is carried at the stores. I've got a plastic one that I can barely put my arms around I picked up at Target one year.

If you need bigger than that, I did make one as a Pot o'Gold for a float once. I used a round plastic picnic table to help form it. Took chicken wire and covered the table, forming a cauldron shape upside down. Then I used paper mache to give it a skin. Tipped it right side up and used foam pool noodles to form a lip, again covered with paper mache. Painted it with spray paint, but you could use latex house paint. I took out the table and it sagged a bit, giving it more of a rounded shape. It will be lumpy and bumpy, but it will also be big. And cheap.

Could a nuclear explosion set off Yellowstone?

I'm going to go against the general consensus here.  While there is probably no (practical) number of detonations at the surface that would cause an eruption, a sequence of high-magnitude subterranean detonations may be sufficient to cause an eruption.  Here is my thinking:1. Nuclear weapons have been used to as excavation devices before.See: Operation Plowshare2. The removal of material from above a volcanic center can cause an eruption.  Mostly from the boiling of previously dissolved gasses - primarily CO2 and H2O, but would almost certainly also involve decompression melting.  The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens is maybe the most famous example of an eruption initiated by decompression.  See the "Initial lateral blast" section of: 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.Though less famous, this process is common elsewhere on Earth - see the decompression section of the Igneous rock wikipedia page.  Decompression melting is the leading theory behind magma production at mid-ocean ridges.3. The magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is approximately 8 km beneath the surface (answer to question 2 of Questions About Yellowstone Research).  This is quite deep - deeper than humans have ever mined (~4km The top ten deepest mines in the world) but not as deep as humans have ever drilled (~12km, Kola Superdeep Borehole).  The KOLA borehole could not be extended further because at such great depth and pressure, rock oozed back into the bottom of the hole as quickly as it could be drilled out.  I must concede that this phenomenon would probably occur at a much shallower depth at Yellowstone because of the enhanced thermal gradient. Though this exploration is in no way conclusive or comprehensive, it is my intuition (as an igneous geochemist who formerly specialized in hotspots) that drilling deeply towards the magma chamber at Yellowstone and then detonating a series of high-yield nuclear devices between the top of the magma chamber and the surface would be a damn fine way of trying to set the thing off.  If anyone does try this I'm going to assume they're some kind of Bond villain, and that an agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service will avert disaster with seconds to spare.

Roughly how long would it take a bathtub full of boiling water to cool down to a comfortable temperature?

Around two hours from 180 deg until it is pretty tepid. It depends on what the tub is made of. Cast iron will radiate heat much faster than a modern plastic.

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