MacHete
Hair Cropper & Chipmunk Wrangler
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2000
- Messages
- 2,559
pics of fire building thread. 
I hadn't made the time to do this in a while, so what the hey! -Thought I'd give Norman the Cat's Koster Bushcrafter from Esav's giveaway a try.
Today we will be using fatwood and- if I need to cheat a little- a handful of hair generously donated by my avatar. (Another good reason to keep a dog around.)
I like to pile my tinder on a nice big sycamore leaf. I can't remember what the little twiggy things are, but I have used them for tinder before. It rained a little this morning, so I was afraid they might be a bit damp.
I decided to cheat right off the bat, so I mixed the fatwood shavings in with the hair. I really didn't have much confidence in the little twiggy things. There was a lot of dry dead wood lying around because of some gusty winds about a week ago. Mostly sycamore, tulip poplar, some oak and hickory and even sumac.
The wierd shape of my setup is due to the location of the fire. It is in a drainage rut leading into a creek behind my house. It is far from level, but the rut makes for a decent field-expedient fire pit, and the ashes regularly get washed away. Bonus that there is water nearby for extinguishing purposes.
I made the all-too-common mistake of not using enough tinder the first time. You know, you get in a hurry and "hope" it is enough instead of taking the time and effort to "know" that it is enough. I had to restart and use all of the dog hair I had collected.
Overall, not a bad go for some relatively friendly conditions. Sorry there weren't more action shots with the knife and ferro rod, but I was solo on this outing, and I've only got 1.75 hands.
I hadn't made the time to do this in a while, so what the hey! -Thought I'd give Norman the Cat's Koster Bushcrafter from Esav's giveaway a try.
Today we will be using fatwood and- if I need to cheat a little- a handful of hair generously donated by my avatar. (Another good reason to keep a dog around.)
I like to pile my tinder on a nice big sycamore leaf. I can't remember what the little twiggy things are, but I have used them for tinder before. It rained a little this morning, so I was afraid they might be a bit damp.
I decided to cheat right off the bat, so I mixed the fatwood shavings in with the hair. I really didn't have much confidence in the little twiggy things. There was a lot of dry dead wood lying around because of some gusty winds about a week ago. Mostly sycamore, tulip poplar, some oak and hickory and even sumac.
The wierd shape of my setup is due to the location of the fire. It is in a drainage rut leading into a creek behind my house. It is far from level, but the rut makes for a decent field-expedient fire pit, and the ashes regularly get washed away. Bonus that there is water nearby for extinguishing purposes.
I made the all-too-common mistake of not using enough tinder the first time. You know, you get in a hurry and "hope" it is enough instead of taking the time and effort to "know" that it is enough. I had to restart and use all of the dog hair I had collected.
Overall, not a bad go for some relatively friendly conditions. Sorry there weren't more action shots with the knife and ferro rod, but I was solo on this outing, and I've only got 1.75 hands.
