Back-up fire lighters

[redcollective]

Hi AJB,

I think we may be talking about two different videos? In the Bushcraft Survival DVD he used innertube... it looks like fresh innertube to me (jungle trek episode?). I just watched it again to be sure... "bombproof" in his words.

Someone will have to conduct an experiment - tyre vs innertube vs perished innertube. My money is on the innertube.

Cheers, RED

 

[AJB]

Hi Red,

That's where we are going wrong, it's Mears contradicting himself, in the book "Bushcraft" he talks about tyres! Equally as bombproof!

At last the Mears is fallible

AJB

 

[MagiKelly]

Hi Red,

That's where we are going wrong, it's Mears contradicting himself, in the book "Bushcraft" he talks about tyres! Equally as bombproof!

At last the Mears is fallible

AJB

Maybe not. Given that they are both rubber there is no reason why both will not work. I would expect them both to work it is just the thought of the reinforcing wires in the outer tyre that would put me off.

 

[AJB]

You cut strips from the tyre wall where the material is thin and I don’t think the wall is reinforced with wire just the tread surface.

 

[steve a]

The walls of tyres are reinforced, best thing to use from tyres is where they recut the tread pattern in, mostly done on commercial vehicals.When re cutting the tool they use is a motorised u shaped gouge, this gives nice thin, less than a quarter of an inch strip of rubber, normally about 6 inches long. I picked a few up from outside a commercial garage yard. I suppose you could cut them yourself from an old tyre but I would suggest that an innertube would be easier.
I only tried it as an experiment and they do burn well but as I do not need to burn rubber to get a fire going in the uk I would not really bother. I think they were being used in rainforest enviroments where finding dry tinder may be a problem, a block of wetfire is probably a better bet anyway

 

[redcollective]

This thread has interested me so I did some googling... tyres are quite a good foundry fuel apparently, provided they are burnt really hot... otherwise there are some toxic compound given off at lower temps ( I won't pretend to understand the chemistry or know exactly what compounds )... are there any chemists on the board? What's in a tyre.. rubber, wire, oil, anything else?

red

 

[scruff]

u almost answered that urself....

...tyres n rubbers contain oil. both of these can also contain additives too which i probably wouldnt like to be breathing in.

eg. the vulcanisation process involves natural rubber being cooked with sulphur....burning this at low temps is probably gonna give of some nasty sulphides and other potential toxic sulphurous compounds.

>cough cough splutter!!<

i dread to think wot goes in to some of these other products.

at the end of the day rubber n tyres fall into the hydrocarbons category and (all the ones that do) burn with tell-tale black smoke which is a chemical cocktail and never gonna be good for u.

 

[redcollective]

Cheers mate, the lesson is save the innertube for emergencies only!

 

[fastbreak]

What I find strange is that I have come accross quite a few burned-out cars in my time and almost always the tyres remained intact !

Heat rises

.................so unless the car was upside down..............


Have fun

Mike

 

[ScanDgrind]

I use bicycle inner tubes in an emergency and they work a treat. If you slice the inner tube up so that you get rings of rubber like gigantic elastic bands, you can then cary a load of them by stretching them over your knife sheath. Then you've always got some with you... As long as you've remembered your knife of course .

Tony