For the UK. Glow sticks for emergency light

pound shops fund the taliban.I have a few from party times,.Always come in handy,not always for end of the world scenario,but your occasional blackout in winter they are useful.

reply to post by Solomons


Pound shops fund the Taliban ????

Do show me some proof of this, as I would really be interested in reading the material.

reply to post by magicmushroom


fair point, but I have spent the whole sum of £2 pound 6 glow sticks.
I too have a wind up torch but I like to be prepared for a number if different situations.

I suppose no two BOBS are the same.

My brother made the first glow sticks for the US Navy (manufactured by hill enterprise)at NWC China Lake.
I know the inventer Richard Taylor Van Zandt.
wiki.answers.com...
www.navair.navy.mil...
www.chinalakemuseum.org...

I got a large number of the first batch (defective in appearance but work fine) from my brother and used them for jokes when I was in the navy in the early 1970s.

My favorite was putting a radioactive material tag on a glow stick and leaving it in a public place. or tying a string to one and towing it behind the minesweeper i was on.
This drove the CO and lookout nuts as no one could figure out what was chasing the ship.
I almost got caught when the EOD team from China Lake was on-board for a mine test and i streamed one and the EOD team knew what it was.
they also knew who on the ship was from China Lake (me)
but they though it so funny they never told the officers over me on the ship.

I carried glow sticks for years when i was on a mine rescue team.

they made a perfect backup light if my mine light failed.

One of the other jokes was to tow one or more glow stick a couple hundred feet behind a small air plane at night.

This looked like a UFO chasing the plane.


[edit on 20-12-2008 by ANNED]

[edit on 20-12-2008 by ANNED]

glow sticks rock, they are standard equipment in my BOB and all around the house. during storms i use them to light the bathroom (wc for you limeys) all night when the power is out. we used them for everything in the service, and i swiped a few cases for home, so i never had to buy them. have also cut then open and poured them on naked chicks at raves for a laugh. also, if you activate one and drop it in a liter water bottle they make a great lantern (the water magnifies the light). one more thing,if you tie one to the end of three feet of 550 cord you can make a nato "buzz saw" to signal and land choppers.

[edit on 21/12/08 by AgentBlack]

I found a link that shows how to make a homemade glowstick. Interesting! It uses Mt Dew, baking soda, and peroxide.
homemade glow stick

reply to post by hotbakedtater


hello nurse!!

i understand how they are reliable and ready to use at anytime (unless previously snapped) but...all of the glow sticks ive seen or played with dont emite much light, maybe, 1 foot radius at most - i dont see how much help that will be unless your trying to find something you just dropped.

are there military grade glow sticks? haha...i guess that'd be a flare huh... hahaha


woah that mountain trick is insane, i gotta try that to blow some minds. 5 people, 5 litres, highlight everything on a street.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH it'd be like MJ's Billy jean video

[edit on 21-12-2008 by 30 Seconds]

the military grade ones are brighter and last 6 to 12 hours.

the cheap ones are about a 1/4 of the military ones in brightness and last about 1/4 of the time.

also remember that if you unwrap them ahead of time, being exposed to lots of sunlight breaks down the chemicals and they don't work no more when you snap them. i say this because i've seen alot of idiots in iraq try to look cool and clip a bundle of them to their flak jacket, but after a few weeks in the desert sun they don't work, so now it's just a useless lump of plastic hagging from their flak.

reply to post by 30 Seconds


I agree that the light that these glow sticks emit is not the best but if you were say stuck on a hill side, you could light one in an emergency and it would be seen by search and rescue helicopters.
I feel that they are a useful item for my BOB and hence I have 2 packets of 3.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


Well hello there.
Great find and very useful too.

I imagine that this would be great for a party but I bet it would have its uses for a sitx situation.

Originally posted by hotbakedtater
I found a link that shows how to make a homemade glowstick. Interesting! It uses Mt Dew, baking soda, and peroxide.
homemade glow stick

this site is bogus and this MT Dew, baking soda and peroxide mix does not work and never will.

the trick the guy played was to pour the liquid from a glow stick without the liquid from the glass vial in the light stick into the Mt dew bottle.

the chemical in the glass vial in a light stick is peroxide. so when added to the mix of MT Dew and the chemical from the light stick it looks like it works.

oh i talked to one of the navy scientist who made the first light sticks.
the chemicals are safe in a light stick UNTILL they are mixed.
phenol the chemical that this compound produces is a cancer causing chemical.

I had an interesting winter-solstice evening using glow-stick liquid to paint mystic patterns on the beach in the dark last night...and freaked a few dog walkers in the process too!

I lit-up, then broke open 3 green sticks, and whilst the glow-liquid is contained in the vial it retains its intensity of light, as soon as it's spread out over a surface it loses most of its luminosity within 30-45mins though would last far less if it had been raining as it seems to be soluble in water

The other note is that the chemicals have a very strong smell, similar to diesel fuel, whilst the reaction is taking place though the odour fades as the light produced fades...

Looks like any glow-liquid-throwing booby trap will need the contents from at least a half-dozen sticks to be useful too