No matter how useless this is, I like it: a newspaper log roller, presumably for the rapid furling of the splayed, ink-smeared pages of a Sunday Times into a tight, combustible log. Do you need a gadget to roll a newspaper up and toss it in the fire? No. In fact, this device looks like it might considerably complicate the process of grabbing a sheaf of papers and squinching them up with your hands. But it just looks so elegant there next to the hearth, doesn’t it? For the curiously specific price of $33.97.
Newspaper Log Roller [Amazon via Gadget Grid]
Unless this produces very dense rolls, it can be dangerous to burn newspaper in your fireplace. A friend of mine set his house on fire by burning loose newspaper in the fireplace: a flaming sheet flew up the chimney and landed on the roof.
Granddad was a voracious reader. He subscribed to the community daily, the big-city paper and a business daily as well as the town weekly and various farm journals. So he had lots of newspapers. And a fireplace. And he had a device like this. And it worked! It was a great way to start fires and make stacks upon stacks of folded newsprint quickly disappear into the fireplace’s gaping maw, without having to wad anything up.
These pop up in garage sales all the time around here. If you’re seeing them for the first time, out of context, covered in dust and cobwebs, they can be quite intriguing.
Well, there ya go. These were big in the first Great Depression, and they made a brief reappearance during the Oil Crunch of the 1970s, when I was in high school. My dad told me about Grampa heating the house with scavenged paper because nobody could afford coal deliveries any more.
If you haven’t got a faux-Texan compound in Kennebunkport heated by the melted fat of tortured slaves, you might need one of these in a year or three.
If’n ye dinnae want the newspapers te go up like a Christmas Tree in the Sahara, laddie, ye gotta roll ‘em tight.
These are actually quite nice to have. They roll the newspaper tightly reducing air flow to the paper. It then burns slowly, more like a log.
Oh come on.
Someone creates a giant Joint roller and is marketing it as a legal product.
You people think those are all tobacco pipes?
FYI–You have to roll ‘em, then soak ‘em in water, then dry ‘em for months for this concept to work.
Protip: for today’s modern economy, this also works with dollar bills, stock certificates, mortgage agreements, etc. Get creative!
The trough is filled with water (and washing machine soap power if you want colorful flames) and the newspapers are rolled onto the trough bar wet into a very tight bundle. Allowed to try for 1 month they make for a safe colorful fire. Fun to make with your child as a cool project you can both share.