Is dryer lint really that good or is there better?

ERdept

ERdept

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I'm thinking of compressing it into a large medicine bottle in my BOB for starting fires. Is there a better material though, or will this do?
 
I've used dryer lint before. It'll work, but it burns pretty quickly, from what I recall. Currently, my little fire starting kit consists of a magnesium block and a med bottle with mostly some cotton balls that have been rolled in petroleum jelly, with a few cotton balls that have some candle wax melted into them, and a a little bit of really fine steel wool. The petroleum jelly cotton balls have worked well for me.

Mix and match some things and try them all out the next time you're playing around outdoors. See what works best for you. Have fun!
 
I use dryer lint with petroleum jelly. I put it on aluminum foil if on wet ground. If needed, I'll through some wax covered cardboard in the mix (Thanks Cliff, got it from you). Also, when acquiring dryer lint, I try to get it right after a load of towels. Cotton and synthetic blend seems to burn better.
 
cotton balls and put vaseline on them to coat it, then place them in a film canister. works great:thumbup:
 
Drier lint works OK. It has to be taken from all cotton garments, or it more melts than burns. It easily catches a spark, but unless something is added to it, it does burn fairly quickly.

If you were making up tinder bundles, the lint will serve you well. I combined moss, fatwood and dryer lint into tinder bundles and the lint is only there to ignite the moss, which ignites the fatwood and burns for several minutes.

I've added candle wax to cotton balls and it makes a dandy firestarter. Petroleum jelly and cotton balls is very good, as is triple antibiotic ointment and cotton balls. I'd only use the last one in a pinch, if nothing else was available though.
 
As mymindisamob noted, dryer lint depends a lot of what has been dried. It is a fairly poor ford of tinder though because it is useless if it gets damp and doesn't burn very long or is very versatile. A small piece of pitch wood is many times better as it can be scraped for spark tinder, cut into strips for longer lasting flame and ignores water to a large extent.

-Cliff
 
I take dryer lint and cram (tight) as much as you can into the empty egg carton compartments, melt wax into each compartment so that it looks like a puddle, add more lint, then more wax. Let dry till hard and then cut the compartments apart. They are not all that small, but a whole one will burn for 10 minutes in a good wind. If you like you can quarter them up, just make sure you use lots of wax so it is all the way thru the cube.
 
This is really a basic question of tinder.
Dryer lint sprung from the notion, that, if you were in a tough spot, you could reach in your pockets, grab some lint, or shave your pants with a knife, and de-fuzz it, and it would serve as a good tinder or spark catcher. This idea has been around for a long long time.

So, if lint will work, then the next leap is dryer lint, mass quantities of tinder at the ready, and the price is right, too!

Is there something better than dryer lint? Sure. Everyone has their favorite tinder. Mine is magnesium dust, hotter faster and impervious to water. But whether it's lint or magnesium dust, without a tinder ball, without something that is going to catch the initial flame and carry your flame into a viable fire, it's not a complete formula.

Whatever works for the individual, and msotly whatever the individual is comfortable with is the thing to use. if you use cotton balls with vaseline, and that's your mainstay, then go with it.

The survivalists will always preach to have a back-up.

The natural back-up, assuming you have at least some kind of spark maker, is to be able to make fire from tinder gathered in your natural suroundings.

I would suggest to be very comfortable with your mainstay, whether it be lint, cotton balls or magnesium, but, also, don't neglect the ability to spark off a fire with small wood shavings, birch bark, or whatever is indiginous to that area.

As far as Fire making goes, I suggest a Main, a back up and a 2nd backup.

Main=Bic Lighter
Back up=magesium & flint ( or lint, or cotton balls, or whatever)
2nd back up=flint and natural tinder


Both the Bic and the mag block have a flint, so, the likelyhood of losing both is slim. but, to be able to conjour up a fire, with a dead Bic lighter and only natural tinder, that is what needs some practice, at least by me.

Dead last back-up, bow&drill?

And you pray to the fire gods you don't ever find yourself in this position.
It's one thing to try a bow and drill, in camp, to hone your skills, quite another in the woods, where it could mean life or death.

Tinder is in the eye of the beholder.

Is there a "Best" tinder? Or is there a list of good tinders that are acceptable for catching a spark and starting a flame? Maybe in the Humid South they prefer one type, and perhaps in the dry high desert they prefer another?
 
I usually use cotton balls with vaseline and it has always worked good in all weather conditions for me.

That being said this year I took an ideal from one of the threads some where
about using the dryer lint.

I used lint from all cotton loads, a lot. Then started carving wood chips and ripping up birch bark. I then added my lint to the shavings and bark and worked vaseline into them after it looked good to me I started shoving the mix into paper towel cores till packed tight. After that I cut them into about 1.5" rounds with a 10" serrated kitchen knife and put them into zip-locks.

These babies burned and burned and burned. I had to fluff a little out to get good first time starts with a WSI P60 fire starter but they also light right up with a Bic.

My kindling got a lot bigger using these because of the long burn time and in one case I tossed one lit into a pit of large split pine and it started those too.


Hope it helps
Helle
 
Doc, I'm really interested in finding what fire straws are all about, but I couldn't open those URLs ("the page cannot be found").
 
Coldwood said:
Doc, I'm really interested in finding what fire straws are all about, but I couldn't open those URLs ("the page cannot be found").
Click to expand...

From what I remember of the post they took cotton balls and Vaseline needed them together and stuffed it into large drinking straws. Then you cut them to length.
I'm sure you'll need to fluff out some of the cotton to start them.

Know that I've wrote this beware I may be wrong.

Helle
 
After reading posts on here a good while back about firestraws (great info), here's the way I do it (since you can't see the posts).

Take a large drinking straw and cut into 3 or 4 sections. Some of the best straws I've found come from Quick Trip stores. Take a section and clamp it close to one end in needle nose pliers, and use a BIC to melt the clamped end closed. Then take about a half of a cotton ball or so, mix in some PJ, and use a small screwdriver or something to push the treated cotton into the open end of the straw. I try to adjust the volume of cotton so that it fills about half the straw section. I then fill the rest of the straw with untreated cotton and melt that end closed.

This leaves a small, watertight, burnable container with untreated cotton to easily catch a spark, and treated cotton to extend burn time. Just use a knife blade to split the straw section, fluff the untreated cotton and ignite. I haven't timed the burn, but it's probably in the 3-4 minute range.

You can make these in quantity by cutting a lot of sections, melting one end on each, treating a lot of cotton, etc. Sort of a production line method. :thumbup:
 
This sounds like a Winner!

I want to make sure of one point, you cut open the firestraw to expose the cotton so it'll catch a spark. And you go ahead and let the straw burn too? right?
The burning plastic , while toxic, probably heats up real hot, and gives a nice extended burn time.

I'm gonna try this, you can't have too many firestarting tricks!

Thanks Greg.
 
Yep, I've always burned the straw. You wouldn't have to, but it does seem to extend the burn-time.
 
westllen said:
cotton balls and put vaseline on them to coat it, then place them in a film canister. works great:thumbup:
Click to expand...

I use cotton balls too, but I melt parafin wax and mix the vaseline / wax at about a 40/60 ratio. They burn for about 8 minutes, especially if you pull them apart and light the cotton.

Gotta watch dryer lint, cause it can have polyester and other fabrics in it that don't burn as well as plain cotton.
 
Coldwood said:
Doc, I'm really interested in finding what fire straws are all about, but I couldn't open those URLs ("the page cannot be found").
Click to expand...

Hey Coldwood,
Wouldn't open for me, either. Good thing I saved it:

I have taken to carrying water proof "flame sticks", made from vaseline soaked cotton packed into drinking straws with both ends melted shut as a form of back up. You can make them whatever length you need, and they can be lit with just the sparks off the lighter, even if the lighter is out of fuel

You can either pull the cotton all the way out and fluff it up for a bigger flame, or I have done it by just pulling out a little bit, fluffy it apart and lighting it. It will then burn the straw like a candle real slowly as the straw melts.

I love these, cause they are practically free to make, you can make them any length that you need to fit inside a kit of hollow handle, and even the smallest spark will set them off and it's water proof virtually completely.

I can't take credit for the idea though, I saw these about 3 years ago in American Survival Guide before it went under.

p.s. these also have no shelf life, I have cut open some that were 3 years old recently, and they lit just like new ones.

also the best way I have found to melt the ends shut is to pinch the straw in a pair of needle nose pliers, then just melt it flush with the pliers good. No burning the fingers this way!!!!!!

You may want to kill me for this, but I forgot to mention that if you use a q-tip as a ramrod to pack the stuff into the straw it goes a lot easier and faster.

Full size straws...use a regular q-tip to stuff, if you want to make really small micro kit ones with those little stirring straws, clip the end of a q-tip. One of the reasons I like these firestarters is the ability to make them any length you might need, but I hardly ever make one above 3-4 inches as that does get hard to fill.

Oh OK...I always have a Zippo to, when I make these fire straws it's for mini and micro "survival" kits, not everyday use. Right now I am working on a neck pouch made out of folded over and sewn 2" elastic strap that holds a small knife, fire straw on one side, and strike-anywhere matches in another straw down the other side, then the whole thing hangs around the neck under a shirt.....Tool and Fire in one nice concealed kit.. always with me.

So how much petroleum jelly do you add to the cotton balls before stuffing them into the straws? Or does it matter?
Just enough to coat it. To much and they are hard to light from a spark.
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I like to seal the end the place heavy pj coated cotton in first, then some not coated at all then top it off with more heavy pj coated cotton. to use I slice right down the side of the straw and pull the dry middle cotton out to light. It always starts right away and burns longer with the heavy pj on each end
Click to expand...

Doc
 
at the end of each year i tend to go through my clothes and towels looking for old ripped t-shirts or towels with holes in them. usually these are 100% cotton. i pull out the old barbeque and toss in some charcoal to get a fire going. next i put some of the cotton garments into a coffee can with a metal lid. after a few hours of burning you can open the lid and your left with something called "charred cloth" or "black cotton". i've used charred cloth to start many fires and only a simple spark is needed. it lights very well and holds embers nicely. the only downside is that if this stuff gets wet it doesnt light very well. so i would keep it in a water tight container and use it ONLY when you've prepared your fire bundle, kindling as well as big sticks and logs.
 
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