Select a wax with a melting point below the boiling point of water. Heat water and melt the wax in it. Slowly spin the water until a wax tornado shape forms. Keep spinning the water and let it cool until the wax hardens. You now have a cool sculpture of a tornado.
-- Voice, Mar 17 2017

This is potentially an awesome idea. You could use a magnetic stirrer, to avoid having to disturb the waxnado. If I ever find myself with a large quantity of wax, I may try this.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 17 2017


Wouldn't there be a need for instant freezing? A blast of wart remover or like. Slow temperature drop would have lumps forming in wax and altering shape.
-- wjt, Mar 18 2017


That is an experiment waiting to be done.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 18 2017


The wax will float on top of the water. When you spin the water fast enough that the sides ascend the sides of your vessel via centrifugal force, the wax will ascend also to the top of that water. You will have a ring.

But the waxnado could be made using oil instead of water. It should be possible to find an oil with the same density as wax. Certainly oil can get plenty hot, as evidenced by the delicious existence of French fries.
-- bungston, Mar 18 2017


Another possible thing is to heat a bowl of wax to near the boiling point, and set the fumes on fire. Without a wick, the heat from that fire is still enough to keep the top part of the wax, in the bowl, fuming --which then burns. I know this is possible because I've seen it done.
-- Vernon, Mar 18 2017


Search "Tornado in a bottle". Many videos. But how to freeze it ?
-- popbottle, Mar 18 2017


hmm, if the hot wax were extruded at the bottom of the container from a slowly closing aperture into cold water then there should be some ratio of volume extruded to cooling time needed to solidify the entire structure evenly as it rises in the spinning water. Lavortex Lamp (+)
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 18 2017


// When you spin the water fast enough that the sides ascend the sides of your vessel via centrifugal force, the wax will ascend also to the top of that water. You will have a ring. //

No, you won't. The wax will actually move inward, and down the funnel. Anything less dense than the water will tend to move inward; anything more dense will tend to move outward.

If you doubt, take a bowl of water and pour on enough oil to not quite cover the surface, then get it stirring smoothly and swiftly. The oil will head for the centre.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 18 2017


Like the idea but I'm wondering if at the transition point between liquid and solid it would be prone to just breaking apart into non-tornatolike pieces.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 19 2017


There's a trick with supercooled ultrapure water, which will stay liquid until it receives a shock.

This sounds like an application for that phenomenon, or something similar.

Perhaps something like a bubble chamber - a sudden change in pressure, equating to an effective change in temperature - triggering solidification.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 19 2017


Or use a photoactivatable epoxy and a very powerful flash-gnu.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2017


Yes, gnu.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2017


No. I don't want to be flashed by unix.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2017


I think the way to do this would be to pour the wax into very cold swirling water so it hardens immidiately and is thus strong enough to stand up to the swirling water.

Forget about making sculptures, this would make an amazing candle!
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 20 2017



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