What We Do on Sunny Sunday Afternoons

Troy and Isaac recently realized they could get a very big fresnel lens from an old rear-projection TV. (You know, the kind that nobody wants any more, especially if they're broken. The guy they got this one from said his wife wouldn't even let him keep it in the garage anymore; they had to go somewhere else to pick it up.)

And they realized they could use this lens to focus the power of the sun and burn just about anything...

Before application of concentrated solar power:

(These are lead wheel weights--fingers included for scale.)

After:

The first video nicely shows the set up of the lens. Isaac built the frame for it. I will warn you that the end of the video is blurred and you may quit watching anytime it's not worth it to you. (Besides the set up, it also records the breaking of a bottle, the instantaneous scorching of lumber and the melting of an aluminum lid.)


This next video shows the melting of the lead shown in the pics above. I would encourage you to watch past the first part--I finally figure out that I need to focus the video while it's shooting. (It gets better, I promise.)



Here is the brick after it's had lead melted on it. The circle in the middle is melted brick, a/k/a glass.

For reference:
Lead melts at 400-500^C
Aluminum at 660^C
Bricks melt at 1,000^C