Emergency tender

trout #2

trout #2

Joined
Jul 22, 2004
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527
So what's the best stuff to use for emergency tinder? Is there anything easy to make that's an alternative to buying commercial products? thanks


edit reason: can't spell
 
bicycle tubes cut crosswise work great as tinder. They also make great bands to hold pieces of kit together, etc.

Cotton with vaseline works well and can be stuffed into waxed straws and the ends folded and sealed for easy carry and dispensing.

Cotton with melted candle wax works good, but can be tough to light if wind is present.

Lint removed from the dryer (cotton is best).

Natural tinders like pine resin, cattail fluff, inner bark of Birch and many others work great.
 
Do mean tinder you carry with you? Or what to start looking for when you need it?

I carry jute tied in a coil knot on my key ring with a BSA Hot Spark as a back-up.
 
Quiet Bear said:
Do mean tinder you carry with you? Or what to start looking for when you need it?

I carry jute tied in a coil knot on my key ring with a BSA Hot Spark as a back-up.
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I was thinking about stuff to put in an emergency/survival kit. Thanks all for the good advice so far.
 
IMO the best stuff and the stuff I carry is pine resin wood or pitch.Find an old dead pine stump and chop the exposed roots out to the desired sizes and there you go.Burns wet and burns hot.You can shave off pices or light the whole stick and after your fire is lit it can be removed from the fire, blown out and reused.
 
I second the jute twine, I keep an inch or two stuffed in my wallet just in case, and 4-5 feet coiled up in most everywhere else, car, pack, suitcase, ect. It is a nice alternitive so you don't need to use up all of your 550 cord if you need a little string. My kids, 6 and 9 even know how get it going with a hot spark. Great stuff. I also keep a tin of drylint with my kit as a back up, it was the first thing I was ever able to get going with a spark.
 
Other than many commercial options, and the suggestions above, you can try rolling strips of newsprint up, and dipping them in melted wax. I crumble the paper before rolling to help them absorb more wax, and stuff them with dryer lint. They are waterproof, easy to light, and burn a good size flame for a long enough time to get a fire going. Melt the wax in a double boiler, and tie a piece of string around the rolled up newsprint to dip it in the wax.

-Will
 
a tampon and some triple antibiotic ointment. A tampon is compressed cotton and if you open one up, you would be surprised as to how much cotton is in there. Get the one without the applicator. The ointment is mostly petroleum jelly so you put the two together and you have a good firestarter.
 
Melting wax/parafin in *only* a pan is extremely hazardous. The double boiler is the best suggestion. Go slow. Low heat. Electric stoves are safer than gas.

I got some cool little screwtop keychain pillbottles for about $5 each at Walgreens Drug Store. They are 3/4" open and 1 1/2" deep. Large enough to push my index finger into a little past the first knuckle. They are stainless steel and have a rubber 'O'-ring and hold a LOT of pills (@10± aspirin). They seem large enough to be useful for other stuff such as firekits.
My current firekit is cotton/vaseline packed with a spark-rod packed in a plastic film can. This is secondary to the Bic which lives in my pocket. I have retrieved rusty Bics from rivers and have gotten them to work with little effort so my faith is in that field. Since kids are generally not allowed to carry a lighter in daily life, these skills and 'improvised' tools are essential.
 
marsupial said:
IMO the best stuff and the stuff I carry is pine resin wood or pitch.Find an old dead pine stump and chop the exposed roots out to the desired sizes and there you go.Burns wet and burns hot.You can shave off pices or light the whole stick and after your fire is lit it can be removed from the fire, blown out and reused.
Click to expand...

To take off on this good suggestion, pine trees, esp. the "Scots Pine," ooze sap when injured. This dries into a wonderful fire-starting material -- in effect, solid to semi-solid turpentine. Any clump of "Scots Pines" will usually yield some of this material.

Great suggestions by longbow50.
 
bishop85gt said:
Spread some of that stuff on something and back up buddy cause you have a fire!!
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I've seen some funky stuff happen with sterno...

Light the fire, use a plastic spoon to blob it onto the tinder...

Set the spoon down a couple feet from the fire, and the spoon lights on fire! Crazy stuff!
 
Here are links to a couple of my favorite fire-starting threads.

Egg carton firestarters as rather exhaustively tested by Cliff Stamp.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181735

The classic "Playing With Fire" thread by Evolute on the Swamp Rat Survival forum. He covers both natural and man-made tinders, along with various ignition devices.
http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000069

"Fire Sticks" or firestraws made from drinking straws, as proposed by our own Last Confederate in the following two threads.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244562
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291476

And here is a discussion of an alternative firestarting helper made from the compressed-wax-and-sawdust fireplace logs available everywhere.
http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000472

(edit to add) A good cheap source for cotton in a more compact form than standard cotton balls is found in the cosmetic aisle at drugstores or Dollar Stores. They are called "cotton buffs". Women apparently use them for applying or removing make-up. They are compressed circular patties of cotton about 2"-2.5" diameter and about 1/8" thick. The ones I saw came stacked up in a clear plastic tube of 100 of them for $1 USD -- so they were a penny each.

When fluffed up and picked out (like with a needle or tweezers), there's about a cotton ball's worth of cotton in each one. But in a form that is much easier to carry around than the standard fluffy cotton balls.

Be sure to get the 100% COTTON version!! It will say on the outside of the package that they are completely cotton. I saw some of these buffs that had no ingredient listing or indication on the packaging what they were made of. IMHO buying those unmarked ones is suspicious, since they may be plastic material of some sort, which won't catch a Firesteel spark & ignite into fire like good ol' cotton does. It is pretty easy to find the 100% cotton buffs, plus cotton's well established record as spark-catching tinder, make the all-cotton ones worth the effort to find them.

Carrying some of the still-compressed buffs plus triple-antibiotic ointment, which is mostly vaseline, with you makes for a multi-purpose bit of kit. Good for fire starting...Good for scrapes & cuts & wounds...Good for chapped lips & preventing windburned skin. You can also use a cutoff section of a buff to improvise a bandaid with some duct tape.
 
RokJok thanks for the Swamp Rat link, I had seen that before and have been trying to find it ever since. We have Pampass Grass and Fox-tail all around us down here and I have practiced on both. Knowing how quickly they can go up makes me realize just how lucky San Diego was in 2003 that the wildfires didn't get spread more then they did. Which was tragic enough, I know people who are still rebuilding.
Mike
 
Thanks for all the great suggestions. I think I"m going to have a "fire practice" afternoon this weekend and test all this out. :)
 
longbow50 said:
Cotton with vaseline works well and can be stuffed into waxed straws and the ends folded and sealed for easy carry and dispensing.

Cotton with melted candle wax works good, but can be tough to light if wind is present.
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We use a combo of both of these. Melt the wax and mix in 40% petroleum jelly for a 40/60 mix. I leave a bit of the cotton dry. Then I tear the ball at the dry spot and use that for the spark/ shaved magnesium or just a lighter. These balls burn for 15 to 20 minutes.
All of my wife and my packs carry a few of these in a ziplock. They do tend to melt a bit in the summer, but still work.
 
Unroll some steel wool, place some lint on that, sprinkle magnesium shavings over that, roll it all back up and wrap it with some jute. You can light it with a match, 9v battery (rub the 9v on the steel wool - sets it on fire), some flint, a magnifying glass, a piece of ice shaped just right, a clear baggy of water, etc... Lots of ways to start fires.

Of course you could just use the steel wool and a 9volt but who carries around that stuff? You could also make some Char Cloth, etc etc etc..
 
The old standby from my youth is sections cut out of waxed milk cartons. The wax is already embedded and they pack flat in a wallet or back pocket. They are water proof. You can cut or tear off strips to make extra large matches. They don't ignite with sparks though. I always carry a Bic lighter. If I am going out into the field I carry two. If I am going out for a long time in winter I pack a couple auto flares in my pack or trunk. An auto flare will start a fire anywhere, anytime and also serves as a distress signal.
 
Jeff Clark said:
... I always carry a Bic lighter. If I am going out into the field I carry two. If I am going out for a long time in winter I pack a couple auto flares in my pack or trunk. An auto flare will start a fire anywhere, anytime and also serves as a distress signal.
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Remember to keep any butane lightr in an inside pocket in temps below freezing. Butane will not make gas below freezing.

Now the auto flare is a great idea. They used to make them half size. I wonder if the shorties are still around. Portable blow torch!
 
It is easy to cut an auto flare down to half length ( if you have a sharp knife:) )! Then you just cover the cut off end with duct tape.
 
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