Match safes

I have 29 waterproof matches and two strikers(wrapped in tin foil) inside my K&M. Its 100% waterproof and strong as hell. It is insurance that I should always have a firestarter with me.
 
I've got a copy of a Marbles match safe.
This thing has a neoprene/rubber disk in the cap that is supposed to make it waterproof.
Unfortunately, this works about as well as a sieve does at holding water. Any ideas on making it waterproof or more water resistant.
 
mrb30045safeopen.jpg


Doesn't seem an inherently waterproof design. Other than gluing in a thicker disk I don't see much you could do.
 
I also like the redundancy. I've had lots of problems with zippos and cold/altitude. I still love them, and carry them, but have other backups.

The best part about zippos is having the belt buckle that you can put one in - truly out of the way, but very accessible.
 
I have one of those knockoffs of the traditional marbles match case, and the little foam seal fell off. Epoxied it back in but it's still hard to trust. I still use it often for some reason, just like the size I think...

But the most reliable for me so far has been the boring plastic 'military like' ones that you can get at walmart, etc. They're pretty simple.
 
baldtaco-II said:
That is strange. I find Zippos to be the most reliable lighter at altitude or in cold. I guess you must have been somewhere way in excess of anything I have experienced.
Click to expand...

Zippos are great. Bics are better. My Zippo always seems to be out of fuel. I fill it up one day and the fuel is gone the next. I'm not sure I could even find my Zippo at this point; it's probably in the back of the sock drawer. Nothin' cooler than a zippo, but I don't like carrying the extra can of fuel. Never had a Bic fail.

For matches, for sheer practicality, it is hard to beat a plastic match safe or two. The K&M's just have an indestructible, good to 200' feet under water kind of feel. Some of that is cool factor, but they do work when all else fails. Try one; there is a real pleasure in shaking out a match, lighting it up, pausing to think about Jack London, and then getting your fire going. Yeah, matches do it for me.
 
Rotte said:

Zippos are great. Bics are better. My Zippo always seems to be out of fuel. I fill it up one day and the fuel is gone the next. I'm not sure I could even find my Zippo at this point; it's probably in the back of the sock drawer. Nothin' cooler than a zippo, but I don't like carrying the extra can of fuel. Never had a Bic fail.

For matches, for sheer practicality, it is hard to beat a plastic match safe or two. The K&M's just have an indestructible, good to 200' feet under water kind of feel. Some of that is cool factor, but they do work when all else fails. Try one; there is a real pleasure in shaking out a match, lighting it up, pausing to think about Jack London, and then getting your fire going. Yeah, matches do it for me.
Click to expand...

I think what makes a lot of difference is that amongst other things I am a smoker. I use a Zippo pretty much constantly. What compounds that is that I smoke hand rolled so they go out unlike a straight. Over the course of a day I couldn't guess as to how many times I fire up the Zippo. It's like a reflex. I prefer Zippos to anything else. They are simple and when I bust them I just have to wait a month for the turn around to get it back. At a pinch I can run one on all sorts of things. I've even got one making fire by filling it with hairspray. As to the the idea of them getting cold and that impeding the output, well really, one has to wonder where it was being kept to begin with. And one has to marvel at the lack of savvy that couldn't get one warmed up by putting it in a pocket, or even if under the arm pit if the conditions were truly that diabolical. I do have back up to the Zippo, but the Zippo does the donkey work.

As for a Bic, that is synonymous here with a cheap and nasty ball point pen, or perhaps one of those one shave razor blades. I'm guessing though that you're on about one of those crappy refill it a few times gas lighters we call clippers. Yep, got a bunch of them. I think they are rubbish. The flame is awful even when they are new. There is only one reason for me to own them. I poke them inside empty shotgun shells and give them away as novelty items to people who are easily impressed by such things and don't come across shotgun shells very often. The one truly endearing feature of them is that I seem to acquire them yet I can never remember buying one.

On top of that there is worse. I've just got another fistful of the cheapest of the cheap gas lighters. I get them free with bundles of tobacco when I nip over to Belgium. I've got them scattered around all over the place. Although they are rubbish they are still better than matches so they are poked in all sorts of bits of kit. There is also that saving grace that a toke of a pipe or bong lit with a Zippo tastes nasty.

Further, both nests have those turbo blue flame lighters kicking around. Now those do complement the Zippo really well.

I think what I am driving at is for me making a light is no big deal. It is not something that needs to be celebrated or gathered around, and it isn't something that warrants the bulk and weight of a small torch just to carry a measly few matches. I think that's a level of reverence a primitive tribes person my bestow upon matches after discovering them for the first time. On the other hand, when they are commonplace in a range of alternatives one may be inclined to look at them slightly differently. I do.
 
Last edited:
porkchop said:
I've got a copy of a Marbles match safe.
This thing has a neoprene/rubber disk in the cap that is supposed to make it waterproof.
Unfortunately, this works about as well as a sieve does at holding water. Any ideas on making it waterproof or more water resistant.
Click to expand...

Buy a K&M:D
 
Am I mistaken, or do the K&M cases rely on a press-fit O-ring seal? That's hard to trust for me, if all it takes is the cord getting knocked loose to let some water in.

Though it's probably a non-issue given their popularity.
 
They do, but I don't think its at all unreliable. The cap would have to be loose enough for the second O-ring to be exposed in order for water to leek in. I have carried mine many different ways without ever having even the first O-ring expose itself.
 
I'm kind of skeptical about the design being better than a screw-on lid but that having been said, if I thought it would leak, I would have traded it off after examining it.
 
+1 siguy-There is something about starting a fire with one match. I have an original marbles match safe and a copy. I added a piece of bike inner tube to the knock off and have had no leaks. I too glue sandpaper to my match safe but it is to the inside of the lid. Match tips away from the sand paper. I really do not like lighters for fire starting.
 
baldtaco-II said:
As to the the idea of them getting cold and that impeding the output, well really, one has to wonder where it was being kept to begin with. And one has to marvel at the lack of savvy that couldn't get one warmed up by putting it in a pocket, or even if under the arm pit if the conditions were truly that diabolical.
Click to expand...

Interesting how misconceptions like this can occur.

Most of my problems have been with zippos kept in my front jeans pocket in 45 - 50 deg (F) weather, at over 11,000 ft. in elevation. Sometimes colder, but I've had lots of problems in those conditions. Go figure. I still like them, though, and it's usually the same ones that give me problems, even though they are full of full and throw sparks. I don't know...
 
Jeff H said:
Just make sure your abrasive and match heads are well insulated from one another.:eek:

Now, I know you're not a dummy, but many of us, regardless of how intelligent we all think we are, have had little strokes of genius,... which might as well have just simply been a "little stroke," wherein we learn a hard lesson as to why "no one else ever thought of that.":o

No matter how bad the beating is that I am taking regarding anything stupid that I (might) have ever done myself, I always have a little "get out of jail free card;" "hey, at least I never set the outhouse on fire." Man, I 'm glad my brother doesn't get on forums.:D
Click to expand...

I cut a strip of waxed paper as wide as will fit into a match safe. I roll it into a spiral, with the striker strip in the middle, then slide it into the safe where it hugs the inner diameter of the safe. Then I put matches in the middle. The waxed paper isolates the striker strip, and at need serves as waterproof kindling.
 
sodak said:
Interesting how misconceptions like this can occur.

Most of my problems have been with zippos kept in my front jeans pocket in 45 - 50 deg (F) weather, at over 11,000 ft. in elevation. Sometimes colder, but I've had lots of problems in those conditions. Go figure. I still like them, though, and it's usually the same ones that give me problems, even though they are full of full and throw sparks. I don't know...
Click to expand...


No misconception has occurred. That it took a special case, something that can be considered mountain, to challenge what I wrote is quite illuminating in its way. Clearly there are going to be exceptions that support the rule, that is the way of things. Regardless, at that hight I'd be even more inclined to have reserves than I am already. Gas lighters and matches in reserve. What I absolutely wouldn't bother going up a mountain with would be an overbuilt match box that contained only a dozen or so matches.
 
I've got a brass K&M that holds around two dozen strike anywhere matches. It's about the length of SAK Farmer, and a little heavier. I got it mostly because we do a lot time on and around the bays, and it is impervious to salt water. The salt spray will destroy any lighter, mostly the wheel and flint, left exposed on the boat long enough. And forget about leaving one on your person while wading around, unless you put it in a container. It will also jack up a ferro rod pretty quickly, though usually I can scrape enough of the junk off of it to get it working. But the matchsafe doens't miss a lick. I can keep a Spyderco Salt I and the matchsafe on my person the whole time, usually along with a small otterbox. The compass, that actually works pretty well, is an added bonus. I'll just drop it in my pocket on the way to the tree-stand in the afternoons. Fire and back up navigation aid in one little package that you couldn't break with Mac truck.
 
Put multiple coats of clear fingernail polish on the ferro rods and that should cut down or eliminate the oxidation.
 
i just had mine in my front pocket when it didn't want to work for me. i was in a rush to get my fire going, and didn't even want to wait the 30 or 60 seconds for it to warm up, so i took out the firesteel. the temps weren't that extreme, but it didn't get above 25 F for 24 hours before and after those 10 minutes i was making fire. it was probably around 20-23 F during that specific time.

later that night, when i wanted to use the zippo to warm up my space blanket, i put it in my armpit to warm it up enough to get it going.

one of the things i really appreciate about the zippo vs the bic or matches is that you can run it like a candle for quite some time. never timed it, but at least 60-120 seconds has never been an issue. you can set it down and use it for light and heat while doing other things.

in the case of the matchcase i have, it weighs about half an ounce, and is among the lighter things i carry on my person in the woods now. i also have some of the basic plastic ones, they work well too and are even lighter weight.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top