Paraffin Wax + Cotton Balls = Witchcraft!

jumpmonkey

jumpmonkey

Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
970
Hey Guys,

I've been playing around with fire starting materials today. I got a couple of firesteels a week or so back and am seeing what does what. I found dryer lint does well, but it's a fluffy mess that easily falls apart. So I picked up an 88 cent pack of cotton balls at the grocery store. While I was there I also found some Paraffin wax ($2.68 for a brick of wax.) I had heard of people combining these two for good fire starting material and decided to see what the fuss was all about.

The procedure:

1) I stripped the label off an empty soup can and filled it up with shards of paraffin wax.

2) I filled a sauce pan with about an inch of water and put the can into the the pan.

3) Heat the water up to a slow simmer and your wax will melt down.

4) Use a pair of needle-nose pliers to dip the cotton balls in the wax. (You might be surprised how well those little buggers just soak up the wax.)

5) Set them on a cookie sheet to cool/solidify.

6) Take one out, fuzz it up a little, and throw some sparks at it.

Here are my test results and some pics of the progression.
The piece burned for about 10 minutes total. It burned quite high for all but the last 2 minutes I'd estimate.

Cotton-1.jpg

Cotton-2.jpg

Cotton-3.jpg

Cotton-4.jpg

Cotton-5.jpg


Seriously, I'm impressed. These things should be outlawed for survival situations. Is it really a survival situation when you can create fireballs at will! What are we, a bunch of witches?

God bless,
Adam
 
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Want some real fun, go to the grocery store and get a couple bricks of Gulf Wax from the canning section melt it down, put a roll of toilet paper in there whole and roll it around, coating the whole roll. Stick the tip of your knife in there and make a few “tabs” off the side to light and you have a badass torch. :D Put the roll on a stick and voila!
 
Joe,

Where does one find the Jute twine. That sounds pretty good. The only thing I'm not liking about the cotton balls is that they're little hard round globules. The twine sounds much easier to store.

Adaman,

That's absolutely insane sounding. I may have to try that sometime... when I have a fire permit.

God bless,
Adam
 
Jump, jute can be found at just about any supermarket, or Walmasses store, its in the envelope letter department, or the hardware area.

If you let the CB's cool down a little, but are still soft, you can mold them to whatever shape you desire, long and thin for easy storage, or little balls, whatever.

Moose
 
I have been using jute twine lately. I think it a little easier to store then pj & cotton. I tie a few short pieces together. Also I made a long one I can cut pieces from as needed.
 
Hmmm glad they worked for you. The last time i tried making parfin soaked cotton balls i ended up with basically chunks of wax that were hard to light.

My new favorite tinder is waxed jute. Though I use smaller pieces of twine than the rope in the Hedgehog video. [youtube]5k8CkezTAkI[/youtube]
 
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Jumpmonkey thanks for the tip that sounds awesome. Any idea how it compares to the old Petroleum Jelly cotton balls? I have played with the PJCB but I hate them as a fire starter as they are very messy, I am just wondering if you noticed a difference between them ie the wax is cleaner but doesn't burn as long or something like that.

Also the Jute twine is available everywhere. You just look for the twine and make sure to get the NATURAL materials one as opposed to a synthetic nylon type of twine.
 
Joben,

I think the problem may have been that you got the entire thing soaked. Because I was dipping them with my pliers there was a little bit on top that never got waxed. I fuzzed it up and it took a spark right away. I blew it out and re-lit it a couple of time after the initial fuzz was gone. The first time I re-lit it took without me even touching the cotton ball. The second time I had to break it up a little to get some fuzz (this time I was well into the waxy part of it.) As soon as I had a spark on the fuzz it took.

Wanderlust,

I've never used PJCB's. This is my first time experimenting with cotton or paraffin, it's been a great learning experience. I'll see about picking up some vaseline when I get to the grocery store for lunch this afternoon. I can probably get you some comparison by this evening. I'll try and get my pictures a little more scientifically this evening rather than randomly shooting throughout the test. I'll have time stamps to go with.

God bless,
Adam
 
I came across a really great firestarter that's really close to what you have come up with here. But instead of using cotton, you use jute and char cloth. Tie it up into a small ball, dip it into the wax then let dry. From there you have a waterproof firestarter that you can make into whatever size you need. Just crack it in half, fluff it back out and light it up! :D
 
i just spent the last ten minutes watching a petroleum jelly laden cotton ball burn. this is truly amazing!!! i've read about this before, but this thread inspired me to finally try it. i'm never going out without this or something like it in my kit again. thanks for the inspiration. my wife didn't share my enthusiasm over the little fire in the backyard, but i guarantee that she appreciates it someday when she's cold.
 
Guntram,

I'm glad that you gave it a try. It's quite good fun experimenting with this stuff. I've not found the jelly yet. I looked at the store today. It seems just buying a jar of Vaseline is not possible anymore. There's all kinds of shades and varieties. Anyone have any tips on telling which one is plain old petrol' jelly?

I did run another experiment tonight. Just for kicks I decided to boil some water over a cotton ball. I filled a 32oz Guyot stainless Nalgene with 2 cups of cold tap water. It took more than one cotton ball. The first brought it to a very slight simmer. Another couple of minutes over the second ball brought it to a rolling boil.

Also a note, the second ball wasn't taking a spark. I didn't fool around with it much I put another piece of (untreated) cotton on top to take the spark and get it going; since I was trying to boil water. I'll have to play with this some more to make sure I'm not going to wind up taking out tinder that won't take a spark.

God bless,
Adam
 
i just grabbed whatever petroleum jelly we had in the house. i'm sure any of it will work. mine is a generic brand and it says lavender and chamomile. it worked just fine. i wanna go burn more, but i'll wait a while and spread the fun out.

adaman04, i'm eyeballing some travel tp rolls now thanks to you. :)
 
Guntram,

I don't have any Petrol' Jelly in the house. I'm a man living by myself. Only been out'a home a couple years. This is the first time I've ever had any reason to buy the stuff. You know, I wonder how multi-purpose the paraffin soaked TP is...
 
i don't think it would be comfortable to wipe with if that's what you're thinking :)

and, i have no idea why we have this stuff in our house. something the wife bought for some reason a long time back. it's the kind of thing that is almost never used and lasts forever. well, until now.
 
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