Firestarter Ideas

Fatwood sounds great! Up here we have to collect our own from spruce trees. Surprisingly I've never found much resin coming out of pines - but further inland the pines just ooze.
One tinder I like because it's so clean and dry that you can keep it in your pocket is tree lichen (old man's beard) soaked in yet another resin - this time from fir trees. It dries to a waterproof finish. This stuff is good for getting a flame from a small spark - but then you have to go to other stuff like spruce resin.
Pictures of my grand-daughter preparing the OMB are here:
http://oldjimbo.com/survival/tinder.html
 
very informative. I learned alot I never knew about OMB.

have you tried pine cones?


thanks
 
Bagheera, thanks man, but I don't want to take advantage of you. Airmail *can't* be cheap. I'll drop you a line, and we'll work out a deal, though. Thanks.

I've looked all over the place in my local Wal-Mart, no fatwood. I also looked for those folding saws, the ones that have a plastic handle with a metal cutting and wood cutting jigsaw blades, that are replaceable; can't find either one. They would both be great additions to my kit, but my Wal-Mart must not carry *anything* that other Wal-Marts do. Oh, well.
 
I've posted this before, but I just came back from 10 days at 9,000ft. elevation in -20F wind chill and snow. So I re-tested BOTH of these methods.

With metal match or any magnesium type sparker: 1 vaseline/cotton ball stretched out thinly (like gauze) over 4"square of 0000 steel wool. Catches and holds a HOT spark, can then be "puffed" into a good flame, and can be moved around, and will shake/dry off if wet.

With match, Zippo, or butane lighter(if not too cold): I cut 3 or 4 "rubber bands" 3/4" wide out of bike inner tube. This will light when wet, and can be moved around your kindling lighting other areas. Stinks,.. but works! I keep them wrapped around my Zippo, actually!
 
Ok you got me interested in tinder. So I tried cottonballs with vaseline , balls with wax and balls with vaseline/wax. The balls with vaseline lasted about 5-6 minuites. Balls with wax lasted about 15 minutes, but were not readily blazing when touched with the match. The combo vaseline/wax started easily and burned for the 15 minutes. Bingo I have a good tinder that works for me. Thanks for getting me interested guys, now I'll start working on the rest of a B.O.B
Bud.....:)
 
Originally posted by V Shrake
Snip
I've looked all over the place in my local Wal-Mart, no fatwood.
snip
Click to expand...

I found fatwood at my local Home Depot in the "Indoor Garden" section, next to the Christmas lights - $5 a bag
 
If any of you are needing a small piece to play around with then drop me an email I will send you a piece out. US postal addresses only. I have enough of this stuff on the farm to burn the world down.

Jeff

jeff@jungletraining.com
 
Thanks, Charles, for the alternate place to look. We *do* have a Home Depot in town, I think, assuming it hasn't been bought out. I made a deal with Bagheera for some mayawood (fatwood by any other name), as well as the large Swedish Firesteel, so my pyro tendencies are satiated for the nonce. :~}
 
Found a small bag (maybe a pound) of Fatwood at Walmart - less than $1.

Easily light w/ match, I didn't have much luck w/ a firesteel (although it worked very well for some parafin soaked cottonballs.

I'm going to try to combine the three - some waxed cotton balls w/ fatwood sawdust mixed into the top layer w/ a "wick" untreated (or vaseline coated) cotton to catch the sparks. The fatwood is probably redundant, but couldn't hurt.
 
Practise Practise Practise....

Consistently starting a fire with 1 match and no other "firestarters" is the goal. I tried this a few years ago and found it was alot harder than I had thought, but I eventually reached it. But since I live in a region that gets alot of rain so there is now promise of always finding dry stuff I carry military hexamine fuel tabs in my kit. They have never failed yet.
 
Originally posted by The Last Confederate
Practise Practise Practise....

Consistently starting a fire with 1 match and no other "firestarters" is the goal. I tried this a few years ago and found it was alot harder than I had thought, but I eventually reached it. ...snip
Click to expand...

I don't know about other boy scout troops, but back when. the troop I was in expected this EVERY time. Your firemaking test was usually given on a damp day, and you were given two matches, and it was considered "bad form" to use the second unless you broke the first. All the old boy scount manuals had all sorts of hints for tinder. Amazing what you can do with a hatchet.

I still do it in the fireplace all the time - the trick is getting a lot of good kindling, and small stuff for the kindling to light
 
Flotsam,

Make a small, fine fuzz stick with the fatwood and your ferrocerium will light it. I have tested myself in absolute downpours with a ferrocerium rod, a pocket knife, and a piece of lighter pine (fatwood) and never failed to get a fire going.

Jeff
 
Just reach in and pull out some belly button lint. It works great and your belly button (assuming you have an inie) protects it from the rain... ;)
But, I can't say the black smoke smells too good... :eek:

Stogie

Edited because I can't spell at 1:00AM
 
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