Recommended tinder?

hwpaintballer

hwpaintballer

Joined
Jun 12, 2008
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Well I'm home sick today, so I decided to work a little on my PSK and maybe if the weather clears up my fire starting skills. I was thinking about using some dryer lint, anyone have any better recommendations on some tinder?
 
Dryer lint works best, LightMyFire sells Maya Dust and Maya Sticks.
Pine Fatwood also works good I have been told. I am going to get some when the rain stops here and see.

I local survival skills trainer has some, he uses it to start his wood stove.
The pine fatwood get gathers is over 100 years old, smells like turpintine and a little pine sol.
 
Throw a few alcohol prep pads in your fire kit also. They will flame up quick and get other tinder burning if it's being a hard case.
 
Thanks for the quick replies everyone :thumbup:


Mrs.Shotgunner11 said:
my algebra homework :grumpy:
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:grumpy: I dislike Algebra with a passion, thankfully I'm done with it, I never saw any real use in it or for it. Now Geometry I liked, and have found some use for.

So
Algebra 1 & 2: not many if any uses, IMO
Geometry: very helpful, especially for finding angles, lengths, and area
Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus: Can't even pronounce them half the time, and probably less useful (IMO) than Algebra.
 
Char cloth, wax cotton balls and jute work great, look on the web there are a 1,000 sites to tell ya how to make char cloth and jute is nothin' more than fine hemp string.
 
I have heard that vaseline soaked cotton balls work well, also high alcohol content hand sanitizer and my personal favorite Magnesium which will work even if it gets wet. You can get compact magnesium rods to shave and they fit right on the lanyard with your firesteel.
 
RJT64 said:
I have heard that vaseline soaked cotton balls work well
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That's what I've been using. They catch a spark easily and burn for a good while. I pack them tightly into a very small container and pull out what I need (less for easy dry tinder, more if things are damp) and fluff it up. Cheap and effective :thumbup:
 
i find the pj balls hard to light for some reason....but the alcohol prep pads that i like.
i will usually carry fat wood shavings and a wetfire cube
 
mollyssurvival.com said:
i find the pj balls hard to light for some reason....but the alcohol prep pads that i like.
i will usually carry fat wood shavings and a wetfire cube
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I have an empty pill container that I had been keeping fat wood shavings in. While making a fire bow drill today I realized that I could use the pill container as a head piece, so I decided to add some dryer lint to the container. :) So its a drill head piece that can hold tinder and some shavings until needed.
 
I've used dryer lint (particularly that derived from drying *cotton*, don't know how polyester lint would behave) and cotton balls with vaseline, or sprinkled with wax shavings.

I would be real interested in seeing a REGIONAL guide to naturally-occurring tinder - I know they suggest fatwood in areas where pine trees abound, but what about other areas? I know my Dad mentioned being on a trip with natives in Peru, and one of the Indians came back with some type of palm leaf for starting the fire (he said "this is our kerosene" ) - it burned very well even though green, but I never learned to identify that type of palm in the jungle. What would you use in say, desert-type ares, such as west Texas? Will cactus needles burn?

I have some magnesium bars, but have not found it very easy to get the shavings from the bar. I hate the idea of ruining my knife edge on it, and even when i tried it seemed to take a long time to get any shavings (and was difficult to concentrate the shavings where I needed them).

I'll admit I haven't tried the RAT firestarter yet, since I already had a couple others, but after seeing recent reports here that it performs better, I may just have to give it a try.
 
RJT64 said:
I have heard that vaseline soaked cotton balls work well, also high alcohol content hand sanitizer and my personal favorite Magnesium which will work even if it gets wet. You can get compact magnesium rods to shave and they fit right on the lanyard with your firesteel.
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+1
Petroleum jelly cotton balls (100% cotton), Jute twine fuzzed up, Fatwood dust and/or Hand sanitizer
 
cotton impregnated with saltpeter solution - works somewhat like char cloth is supposed to work
 
Make some firestraws. For this, I like to use petroleum jellied cotton balls, but you use anything like maya dust or fatwood saw dust.

Grab a McDonald's straws, one of the fat ones, squeeze the end with a pair of needle nose pliars and seal it shut using a lighter. Now cut the straw about 3" above the sealed end. Pack it with your tinder. Seal the other end shut. This is a nice little method as it lets you seal the contents, like a pixie straw, without making a mess. They are water proof and take up very little room.

Each straw is great for lighting a fire. Just slit the centre with your knife, tease out a couple of strands of the cotton inside and light with your firesteel. The straw itself will catch fire and regulates the burning. I timed about 2.5 minutes on one of my straws for burn time, longer than the plain PJCB because the straw keeps the main part of the PJCB compacted and dense almost like a little fire log.

RE the headpeace for bow drill. That sounds kind of cool. I posted a challenge in W&SS yesterday to see if somebody could put a divot for bow drill in a doan stick. I'm thinking of doing that myself.
 
kgd said:
I posted a challenge in W&SS yesterday to see if somebody could put a divot for bow drill in a doan stick. I'm thinking of doing that myself.
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Now that is a good idea.
 
I don't really care for dryer lint myself.
Jute seems to work better for me, and other then tinder the twine is useful too...

I just tried a Tinder-Quik tab, that's really good stuff, and not expensive, at least compared to wetfire and soforth.

I've tried Mayadust and...well it's not really tinder. It is not inclined to take a spark.
Not that fatwood shavings are useless, far from it, but you're better of carrying a little fatwood stick and making your own shavings on the spot. Much cheaper too.

Shredded jute twine impregnated with candle wax is my prepped tinder of choice, I make my own.

I'm also a fan of those little birthday candles; once you get a flame, they make keeping it very easy.

And I wholeheartedly second RAT's reccomendation of alcohol prep pads. Those things are awesome, and so versatile.
 
Dryer lint, especially from cotton clothing, works well.

I would be interested in seeing if you could generate enough heat from a bowdrill to light the whole Doan block of magnesium up. Used as a pivot properly, I doubt it would do anything, but it would be interesting to see if somebody could make one light.
 
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