Solar Fire starter

T

Temper

Joined
Oct 30, 2002
Messages
3,011
I saw one of these on Ray Mears site and had to have one.

picture from www.sundancesolar.com (I got mine from here)

sundancesolar_1907_6645960


As a part of a survival kit it makes a fair bit of sense as it will do double duty as a fire starter and a signal mirror/mirror

I was a bit courious as to how well it would work so I just went outside with it 11:10hrs now. It lit a piece of charcloth in about 3 seconds, OK not bad but not that impressive. How about a piece of charcoal for a BBQ? within *20 seconds I had a live coal.

Not too shabby and pretty fun to use if you dont mind seeing spots for a while afterwards :)

*It could have been sooner but in the bright light its hard to tell, I could smell it very quickly though.
 
Cool!! I think that dark glasses would be a good idea though.

If you had a big enough one you could focus it on your pan to cook your dinner...no need to light a fire at all. Great for Aussie outback and other areas with plenty of cloudless days.
 
Very Cool,

You can focus it on ant-colonies and pretend to be Darth Temper with your Death Star :D
 
Although I've never tried it, supposedly you can do the same thing with the reflector out of a large flashlight. Just put the tinder fungus, or whatever at the focal point of the reflector. Guess I'll have to try it.:grumpy:

Doc
 
That soda can thingie is cool! I'm going to try that. Lemme see, where's a can... Doh! Recycling guy came yesterday! I guess I'll have to wait a bit.
 
Temper said:
Doc you can do it with a soda/beer can, just polish the base, put tinder on a bamboo skewer or similar and hold about 1.5" from the base of the concave. Its a little fiddly but the heat is prettt impressive

read about it here

http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/fire/cokeandchocolatebar/index.html
Click to expand...


I saw them try the soda can-chocolate thing on "MythBusters" and they couldn't get it going. I suppose it's worth a try under but I wouldn't want to count on it.
 
Temper said:
Doc you can do it with a soda/beer can, just polish the base, put tinder on a bamboo skewer or similar and hold about 1.5" from the base of the concave. Its a little fiddly but the heat is prettt impressive

read about it here

http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/fire/cokeandchocolatebar/index.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, Temper.

I saw them try the soda can-chocolate thing on "MythBusters" and they couldn't get it going
Click to expand...

That's because Rob Bicevkis isn't on Mythbusters.

Doc
 
GibsonFan said:
I saw them try the soda can-chocolate thing on "MythBusters" and they couldn't get it going. I suppose it's worth a try under but I wouldn't want to count on it.
Click to expand...

It takes about 30 seconds to make the can with a gentle automotive paint rubbing compound. You also need a quality tinder like True tinder fungus or Charcloth.
 
Temper said:
It takes about 30 seconds to make the can with a gentle automotive paint rubbing compound. You also need a quality tinder like True tinder fungus or Charcloth.
Click to expand...

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, so to speak... but it seems a lot easier to carry an aspirin bottle of matches and vaseline-soaked cotton balls than to bring polishing compound and cans of pop. :)
I looked over that whole site, there's some really cool info on there. I get the feeling dude was just bored one day with the pop can thing, as well as making fire with a wine glass. The tinder-prep and shelter articles are really good, though. The scout-pit would be an awesome cache for a few buckets of clean water and whatnot. Check out the ground-down CS SRK the one guy has in all his pics... http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/fire/flintandsteel/abbknifeandstone/index.html
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Although I've never tried it, supposedly you can do the same thing with the reflector out of a large flashlight. Just put the tinder fungus, or whatever at the focal point of the reflector. Guess I'll have to try it.:grumpy:

Doc
Click to expand...

Well I tried it today. Used the reflector off a 2C Mag light. Worked like a charm. Took about 2-3 seconds, once I got it (Tinder fungus - Inonotus obliquus) in the right position. Possibly another argument for the old (non-LED) style flashlights.

Doc
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Well I tried it today. Used the reflector off a 2C Mag light. Worked like a charm. Took about 2-3 seconds, once I got it (Tinder fungus - Inonotus obliquus) in the right position. Possibly another argument for the old (non-LED) style flashlights.

Doc
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Especially if you get hold of one of the crank ones so batteries are not an issue.

GibsonFan: I see the can thing as just an example of ingenuity, if you were in a bind in the desert and knew it would be monkeys cold in the night, you would probably be happy enough with it.
 
Hey Guys....

Some years ago someone use to sell a folding solar Ciggy lighter....

You open up the reflector,,inserted the cancer stick and pointed the entire thing at the sun...

After a few seconds or minutes your cancer stick was alight...

Pretty cool making any type of fire or food cooking with the sun..
A very powerful resourse...

Sucks though trying to light something at night or when cloudy..:)

ttyle

Eric....
 
Always like to have a small magnifying glass along to supplement other fire starting means. In case of emergency they are often at hand in your binocular, telescope, camera, hand lens, eye glasses(?) and so on. A magnifying glass, like the focused mirror, is an effective fire starter as long as you've got sun which is usually not a problem in Nevada.

Dave
 
Normark said:
Hey Guys....

Some years ago someone use to sell a folding solar Ciggy lighter....

You open up the reflector,,inserted the cancer stick and pointed the entire thing at the sun...

After a few seconds or minutes your cancer stick was alight...

Pretty cool making any type of fire or food cooking with the sun..
A very powerful resourse...

Sucks though trying to light something at night or when cloudy..:)

ttyle

Eric....
Click to expand...

I remember them, and I THINK the one in the first post is the EXACT same model... The old lighter model was a bit oblong though, and the picture makes it LOOK like it is round, so it may be a BIT different, but even the spring thingy that you use to hold the tender looks the same... I cannot tell if it has ridges on the inside, but I seem to remember that the old one did...
 
condahaw said:
Always like to have a small magnifying glass along to supplement other fire starting means. In case of emergency they are often at hand in your binocular, telescope, camera, hand lens, eye glasses(?) and so on. A magnifying glass, like the focused mirror, is an effective fire starter as long as you've got sun which is usually not a problem in Nevada.

Dave
Click to expand...

Aside from starting fires, a good magnifying glass is useful for plant identification, first aid applications (like looking for a foreign object in somebody's eye or seeing splinters,) threading a needle for a repair job (more applicable for us geezers) etc. Truly a multipurpose bushcraft tool.

Doc
 
Aside from starting fires, a good magnifying glass is useful for plant identification, first aid applications (like looking for a foreign object in somebody's eye or seeing splinters,) threading a needle for a repair job (more applicable for us geezers) etc. Truly a multipurpose bushcraft tool.
Click to expand...

Doc,

You know it, especially for these old eyes...

Dave
 
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