- Joined
- May 3, 2006
- Messages
- 1,819
Hi Guys. I got a chance to get away from town for a couple of days over Memorial Day. The wife and I rented a rustic log cabin on Mt. Baker.
Hey! Reading a Dale Brown novel while sitting on the porch IS getting outdoors!!!
Well, I decided it was necessary to light more on fire than my cigar, so I planned on using several carried and found tinders to use my ferro rod on. While walking about I noticed tons of dandilions that had gone to seed and were ready to spread their love all over the place. In years past I have lit dandilion flowers on fire with a lighter just because "they looked cool" buring at night. I wondered if they would ignite from a ferro rod.
As I have taken to keeping a BSA HotSpark on my keychain at all times, I whipped it out and got a dandilion to light by the fourth scrape. They burn pretty fast, and the dull yellow flame made me suspect that they don't burn terribly hot. I reasoned that if dandilions were to have a place in survival firestarting, they would have to serve only as the initial "flash tinder", like magnesium shavings do. In order to get a proper fire going, secondary tinder is necessary.
After harvesting several white dandilion flowers, I made some very fine curls from some dry wood. (This gave me an excuse to finally batton with the RAT-7!!
)
I placed the flowers close together, then sprinkled some curls on top of them.
Around this, I built a teepee of dry kindling, keeping it open enough to allow the spark to reach the dandilions. I also placed several sticks around the teepee to be added to it once the flowers ignited.
The Flowers ignited on the third scrape of the HotSpark. The curls caught, and I added more while the flowers were still burning.
From here it was a piece of cake to bring the fire up.
Here are the players in today's little drama:
Dandilions are very widespread and are recognized by even very small children. They tend to flower throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Their leaves are edible, and now the flowers can serve another purpose! I have read a ton of survival manuals, from Greg davenport to Cody Lungren to Tom Brown, but don't recall anyone ever mentioning these flowers as a tinder source. Did I actually get here first??? That would be cool!
-- FLIX
Hey! Reading a Dale Brown novel while sitting on the porch IS getting outdoors!!!
Well, I decided it was necessary to light more on fire than my cigar, so I planned on using several carried and found tinders to use my ferro rod on. While walking about I noticed tons of dandilions that had gone to seed and were ready to spread their love all over the place. In years past I have lit dandilion flowers on fire with a lighter just because "they looked cool" buring at night. I wondered if they would ignite from a ferro rod.
As I have taken to keeping a BSA HotSpark on my keychain at all times, I whipped it out and got a dandilion to light by the fourth scrape. They burn pretty fast, and the dull yellow flame made me suspect that they don't burn terribly hot. I reasoned that if dandilions were to have a place in survival firestarting, they would have to serve only as the initial "flash tinder", like magnesium shavings do. In order to get a proper fire going, secondary tinder is necessary.
After harvesting several white dandilion flowers, I made some very fine curls from some dry wood. (This gave me an excuse to finally batton with the RAT-7!!
)
I placed the flowers close together, then sprinkled some curls on top of them.
Around this, I built a teepee of dry kindling, keeping it open enough to allow the spark to reach the dandilions. I also placed several sticks around the teepee to be added to it once the flowers ignited.
The Flowers ignited on the third scrape of the HotSpark. The curls caught, and I added more while the flowers were still burning.
From here it was a piece of cake to bring the fire up.
Here are the players in today's little drama:
- I used my EDC Kershaw Ken Onion folder to split the tinder and to make some of the curls. I also used the back of the blade to scarpe the HotSpark.
- The BSA HotSpark, attached to my keys.
- I used my Ontario RAT-7 to batton through large chunks of wood, then shave some curls as well.
Dandilions are very widespread and are recognized by even very small children. They tend to flower throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Their leaves are edible, and now the flowers can serve another purpose! I have read a ton of survival manuals, from Greg davenport to Cody Lungren to Tom Brown, but don't recall anyone ever mentioning these flowers as a tinder source. Did I actually get here first??? That would be cool!
-- FLIX
Glad you had a great trip. By the way, I keep a BSA fire starter on my keyring, too, along with the striker, a mini-Gerber, and a my Windstorm whistle.
