Old waxed matches, W/pics

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beckerhead

Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
582
Going through an old kit, and found a baggie of cotton wrapped, waxed kitchen matches along with some meds that expired in '08, so I figure it was an '06-'07 kit. I have heard lots about the failure of matches to strike, etc, after any period of time. They must've gotten hot because they were all melted together in the bag. I popped a few loose, and did test strikes, and they both lit, and did a length of burn test and got well over 2 min. out of 'em. While I'm not a huge match fan, they did function just fine after 4-5 yrs.

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Been doin it for years. Just take a cotton ball, unroll it, and use about 1/3 of it to wrap the neck just below the match head, then dip in wax that's just barely hot enough to melt. I have used really hot wax before, and it seemed to mess with the heads of the matches, kinda made 'em crumbly. I mean vs. a ferro rod, or even a Bic, the practicality is debatable, but to actually provide a self-lighting, mildly wind resistant, long burning flame, they work well enough.
 
That was awesome! I am about to order some matches this week...and have been searching HI and LOW, for the best match...NOW I have an idea to make it all work out for me, I love the idea and also your post and the timer...awesome post IMO.
 
The matches do not look like strike anywhere matches. Are they? I do not like strike on the box matches. If the strike surface gets wet or damaged, then what? Nice idea with the cotton wax wrap. Would a good idea be to dip the match head in varnish, wrap cotton around the neck of match, then dip into wax? Your matches seem to work just fine. Thanks for the post.
 
Yes, they are SOB's (strike on box, LOL) at the time, when I made these, I didn't have a local source for white tips. I have striker material both glued inside the lid of my Altoids kit, as well as a strip loose in the tin. However, since then, I have found, some white tips and have them in most of my kits now. One of the reasons I pulled 'em was the age, and to see if the wax (which had melted again, as they were all lumped together sort of) had degraded the match heads to make then un-strikable. Another thing I do is make sure the wax is just hot enough to melt, and not smoking hot. I think (NO proof) that this may allow too much saturation into the match heads and cause some of the failures I have read about. Either way, even if it was scraped open, fuzzed up, and used as some spark rod tinder you still have nice burn time, and decent breeze (not hard wind) resistance. :)
 
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