Jute Candle, Pic Heavy

[intheshaw]

Ok, so I'm not sure if this has been done yet or not. I took some waxed jute twine and I decided to add a little twist to it.

I first took a tea candle and removed the candle from the metal container. I then melted down some extra wax to pour back into the metal container and also to soak my jute in. I cute all strips into 6 inch sections for the rest of my fire starting kits, and cute one of those strips into 2 pieces to put one into the candle. You can youtube how to do this or look at the other thread on this. I constructed a makeshift holder to keep the jute upright during the cooling process to keep it from tipping over.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

From there you can see the finished cooled product. The jute twine is wrapped up inside of the tea candle slightly.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

Now to test the performance between regular 3 inch waxed strip and the 3 inch strip inside the tea candle.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

The jute caught on one spark from my steel and the fire last 21.9 seconds. Now I tested the 3 inch section inside of the tea candle.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

It also caught on one strike.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

This picture was taken at about 2 minutes of burning.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

This picture just shows the size of the flames coming off the jute candle

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

At about 5 minutes, the candle wax had completely melted away but soaked into the existing ashes and continued to burn.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

This picture is at 10 minutes as you can see. Its hard to tell but these is still a small flame burning and I put a piece of tinder in the flame and it caught.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

At almost 12 and a half minutes the flame finally burned out. I placed some tinder on top and it barely charred the edges but if you tried hard, you could probably get it going.

By intheshaw at 2011-10-08

So as far as I can tell, it's definitely worth the extra 10 minutes to make the jute candles. From start to finish it took approximately 30 minutes with most of that time coming from melting the wax on low heat. I had mad 30 6" jute strands and one candle. I tried to make 2 candles but didn't realize one had a pinhole and all the wax poured out. So with some quick math the jute candle last almost 35 times longer than the regular waxed jute.

I was surprised that it lasted as long as it did, and will definitely make more of the jute candles. I only made one for the test run but plan on making more. It would be worth the little bit of extra room that the tea candle takes up over a regular strand. There was also a slight wind during all of the testing. This was my first try at this and first review so I hope that you guys like this.

 

[DrivebyTrucker]

Very cool and thank you for the pictures and idea. I think it's great to make your own tinder as I feel we can make it more reliable than the store bought stuff. It's also a great way to customize the tinder to your preferences. Such as igniting the tinder with a spark. You've created a tea light candle that can ignite with a spark. Which, assuming your lighter was broken, lost, or whatever, may be the only way you'd have to ignite it. I like that the candle wax melts away and soaks into the surrounding kindling, and keeps lit for several minutes.

 

[lmalterna]

Hmmmm good idea, I am thinking of small bits of fatwood mixed in the wax for even more performance.

I wrap hiking stick handles in jute and then cover with rubber electrical tape- wax soaking the jute would allow a liittle slower burn time.

 

[intheshaw]

I hadn't thought about adding bits of fatwood. I am also playing with an idea for different containers. There has been mention of maybe putting the candle inside paper condiment containers so they can burn through completely without having to remove the container.

 

[6shooter]

There has been mention of maybe putting the candle inside paper condiment containers so they can burn through completely without having to remove the container.

Cardboard egg cartons work well for this.

Fire "tins" are a good one for winter as well, I use tuna cans. Cut up cardboard strips so that they're about 1/4" taller than the height of the can. Then roll the strips up, and stuff them into the can. Melt wax all over the cardboard until it's filled up to about the top of the can. I find the best way to do this is to use an old clothes iron and drip the wax in as if you were waxing skis. The waxed cardboard won't take a spark, but you could stuff some jute or cottonballs between the rolls for that. The ones I made burned for well over an hour, and IIRC, was around an hour and a half. Pretty heavy for what they are, but in the winter it's nice to have one just in case.

 

[Les Snyder]

as a Scout in the late 50s early 60s we used shoe polish tins with tight fitting lids... braded sash cord for wicks....Gerber baby food containers for lights, 3 wicks in a tin for lights with no glass, and a ring of cord or lamp wick for paraffin stove... sooty but worked well with the surplus canteen cups and stands we had

 

[intheshaw]

There are plenty of ways to make different tinder. What I was going for was a long lasting fire starter that would be used with firesteel and could light easily. I'm definitely gonna add one or two of these candles to my fire kit.

 

[Joezilla]

I've done something similar using egg cartons as the casting mold. Good stuff.

 

[kgd]

Cool. I usually just buy those cheapo Coghlan's firesticks. Only product they make that works, but I like 'em. The candles are neat though.

 

[Fiddleback]

We used to do this in the boy scouts with rolls of corrugated cardboard that we tied off with jute and dipped in paraffin. Those things would burn for a long time!