Help me with firestarting .

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
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I,ve been slowly putting together a kit that consists of some black flint . A half moon shaped tree fungus (name escapes me) that has been drying for four months and a Becker necker which is pretty close in shape to a patch knife . What do I do now ? Should I just crumble up a bit of the fungus and strike away ?

I also would like to know how to make char cloth . I have a half size cake tin . Is that too big ? It would just sit on the smallest element on an electric stove . How hot do I have to make the element and for how long ? Thanks
 
Most tinder works better if you scrape it rather than crumble it, the goal in any case is to increase the surface area as much as possible. You can make char cloth in any thing including large pain cans. It is generally done when it stops smoking, but it is better to try it sooner than later because you can always recook it but if you go to far and it is overheated it will crumble to ash.

-Cliff
 
The one and only time I made charcloth I used denim, cut about 5 inches square, double thickenss. I sealed it in some heavy duty aluminum foil so it was pressed down flat with all the edges crimped tight. I poked a small pinhole in the foil and laid it on the coals of my grill after a cookout. The cloth "burned" in the absence of air, all sorts of smoke coming out the pinhole. When the smoke stopped I took it off the coals and let it cool. It made perfect charchoth. Mac
 
Thanks guys . So the tree fungus is good like it is ? I,m asking that cause I heard of a guy soaking his in saltpeter . I don,t have any so I,mglad I don,t need it .
I,m glad for the heads up on the char cloth . I was gonna do this in the house and I proabably woulda smoked myself out !
 
Most of it is scraped, Mear's demonstrates this in the Bushcraft series and does it with a flint and steel which is *much* harder than a ferro rod. With a ferro rod you don't need to do nearly as much preperation as with the right striker there is a massive concentrated shower of very hot sparks. You can for example ignite wood shavings directly which you can't do with a single spark from a flint and steel.

-Cliff
 
Yeah, I wouldn't try to make charcloth inside or you'll be sleepin' on the couch. Mac
 
Easy way to make char cloth.
Fill tin with 2in squares of 100% cotton material, "T" shirt material works well.
Seal tin and poke a small hole in the center top.
Set the tin on top of coals or slow fire, you want a slow roast.
Watch the can smoke, it will come jetting out the hole you made.
When the smoke jet stops insert a wooden plug in the hole you made so air can't get back into the tin.
Remove the tin from the fire and let it cool. Or wait for the fire to go and then let the tin cool.
When the tin is very cool.
Pop the tin open and check the tinder. it should all be a nice uniform black,
no light brown pieces. If you find any of those they have not charred properly.
Good luck<><
 
The Best Materail I've Found Is 100% Cotton Terry Cloth Hand Towels But Make Ure You Wash It 3-5 Times This Removes The Sizing They Use, I Like The Terry Cloth Because Of The Smallbits It Has It Catches Sparks Like All Get Out.


Tryker
 
You might think of carrying one of those little hand pencil sharpeners with you, the tinder created by "sharpening" a stick is wonderful stuff. Nice thin crumbly wood shavings easily made in large quantities from something not even weighing an ounce and takes up very little space. You can make shavings like that with a knife, but it takes a bunch longer and you typically don't get them as thin or curley as what you get from the pencil sharpener.
 
bigbcustom said:
You might think of carrying one of those little hand pencil sharpeners with you, the tinder created by "sharpening" a stick is wonderful stuff. Nice thin crumbly wood shavings easily made in large quantities from something not even weighing an ounce and takes up very little space. You can make shavings like that with a knife, but it takes a bunch longer and you typically don't get them as thin or curley as what you get from the pencil sharpener.
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks a lot:thumbup:
 
The pencil sharpener idea is one that I've never heard before; excellent. :thumbup: Of course, I imagine that you have to not only get "pencil" sized bits of wod, but it would also need tol be free of knots or otherwise it would wreck the blade. I need to try this; thanks for the idea, dude.
 
Pencil Sharpener.....Thanks. Terrific idea! Never thunk of it till now. Have pencil sharpener will travel.
 
I just can't wrap my brain around privative fire making skills! Maybe someone here can start a fire with their bare hands and what is around them, god bless you! I suspect most of us need some tools. If you are going to carry any tools why not carry the best you can get? If I can carry a knife then I can also carry a big ferro rod. Now I have some real fire making tools. I can scrape or whittle some thin strips of wood and start them with the ferro rod.

Char cloth, carbon steel, flint, bow saws, etc. are fine to know but for real survival I want my big ferro rod and some treated cotton ball based tinder. My fixed blade knife and some fatwood would be nice too. :D
 
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