feuerpumpe fire starting method

[John Fenna]

On the promiss of a horn piston (free-ish) I traded my wooden piston and now - as the horn one is yet to arrive - I rather wish I had not!
Still it was a good trade.......
I still get a bushy flame with my home made flint&steel set so I get that warm glow from knowing I did it my way as well as from the fire.

 

[Pele's Fire]

I just found some pictures made by a "Ibrahim L" of a Thai(?) fire piston maker while browsing Photobucket. It looks like the knowledge is still alive overthere!
The horn piston looks traditional, the other one is just plain weird. Also some pictures of the "tinder palm".
http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u27/Ibrahim_L/?start=40

Cheers,

Tom

I wanted to add that the palm is pretty common in Hawaii, the common name for it is Fish Tail Palm. I wonder what part of it they use for the lumpy tinder.

John

 

[Galemys]

I wanted to add that the palm is pretty common in Hawaii, the common name for it is Fish Tail Palm. I wonder what part of it they use for the lumpy tinder.

John

Hi John,

Palm tinder was also used in Borneo as tinder for the bamboo-spark method (there´s a thread about it, hidden in a fire thong discussion). BOD has found a very knowledgable man in Borneo who still knew how to prepare it and showed it to him. It´s made into an tutorial/article with a lot of pictures:

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/articles/skills--general/quest-for-the-fire-bamboo.html

The addition of ash of the other plant is not mentioned in other sources I have found!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[BOD]

The Burmese Fish tail palm (Caryota mitis e. Griffithii) is what was used on the SEAsian peninsula.

In Borneo the apiang palm is the choice.

As to why there is no mention of char ash perhaps that is because the lulut and ash are mixed, dried again and stored in bamboo tinder tubes till needed.

Unles a traveller saw some being made he would assume that it was just the lulut (palm scruf)

Tom is the "bamboo spark method" the same as what i have been pursuing? I thought you were talking about something else!

Did not realise that the post had become an "article"

I must start experiementing with my lulut. Unfortunately all my good temiang is in Borneo.

 

[Galemys]

Tom is the "bamboo spark method" the same as what i have been pursuing? I thought you were talking about something else!
`
Yep , bamboo-spark, bamboo-percussion, fire-bamboo... it´s all the same: striking ´temiang´ bamboo to produce sparks (and theoretically make fire with those sparks...).

Unfortunately I don´t find `new` old firestarting methods every week but if I just look at the different methods that were formerly practised in Borneo alone (handdrill, flint and steel, fire saw, fire thong, fire piston, bamboo-spark) I can´t help thinking that in all those thousands of years that mankind all over the world has been trying out to set things on fire there must have been many more methods discovered and subsequently lost.

I am currently thinking about naturally occurring methane (literally moerasgas, `swamp gas´ in Dutch) a gas that can be found in about every marshy pool in Holland. Maybe it can be used with sparks to ignite tinder that normally doesn´t ´catch´ sparks? If it does it would be readily available for every caveman that roamed the lowlands to create fire.

Did not realise that the post had become an "article"

I came across it a while ago, if I recall correctly it ends with ´David Maybury Lewis´, the name of the man you formerly quoted in your signature, as if it was him who wrote the article!

What do you think of the Thai fire piston maker? All sort of questions rose when I saw the pictures. Where were those pictures taken? Is this the remainder of traditional skills or did he just found out about fire pistons on the internet and tried to copy that, like I did?
The carved tiger fire piston sure is original!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Pele's Fire]

Thanks BOD & Tom, I didn't know that you could use palm heart Lulut. Please let me know if you are able to produce a lump of the tinder that fires as reliably as chaga. I know that at least two of the makers of pistons on Ebay are sending their pistons out with some type of manufactured tinder both of which seem to work extremely well. One even looks edible(alot like beef jerky)

I really liked the tiger too. I wouldnt mind being able to get an original piston like that someday.

 

[mrsfiremaker]

During some of my first researching into the palm fiber tinders I learned that, depending on the palm, you could use the tinder from the leaf base or use some of the fine inner bark. It was not being used in any prepared method, just dry. I did find a website from some missionaries from Ecuador who had some pictures on the site, one including a hand holding fine inner bark from a palm tree referenced as the greatest tinder that the natives carried with them. I emailed them asking if they knew the type of palm or if there was a way I could obtain some but never got a reply. I also went to a National Palm tree site that saves palm trees, replants them, and prunes them, ect. They did not have much help. I then contacted a company that make fake palm tree props to see where they got their fiber from and they were kind enough to send some fiber our way. It was too coarse and thick.

Good find on those Thai pictures. The Horn one reminds me of another with the open lubricant holder on the bottom, made from bamboo. Maybe it was the one that Deweese had. The carved Tiger actually gives Darrel the answer that he needed on a fire piston he has been trying to work out in his head for awhile. He never thought about it upside down.

John, we have been wanting one really bad too but I doubt anyone of us would end up with one unfortunately. People trying to leave the countries in SE Asia with traditional fire pistons have had them taken away because they are "artifacts." This has been happening since at least the mid 80's. Deweese is a very lucky man. Without his strange bit of luck, we’d still be in the dark about them.

 

[BOD]

.... People trying to leave the countries in SE Asia with traditional fire pistons have had them taken away because they are "artifacts." This has been happening since at least the mid 80's. Deweese is a very lucky man. Without his strange bit of luck, we’d still be in the dark about them.

Where did this confiscation happen? I don't think I'll have this problem.

 

[Pele's Fire]

I dont think I would be wanting one nearly as bad if I had skills like Darrels.

 

[mrsfiremaker]

Where did this confiscation happen? I don't think I'll have this problem.

We got a couple different "When I was in the military..." Our friend was in the Phillipines in 1984 when this happened to him. He as given one as a gift and when he tried to leave with it, it was taken as an artifact with a few other things. Hopefully thats not so much of a problem for you.

 

[Galemys]

Have you still not heard from the scientists?
Becky

I got a message in my inbox from Bertrand Roussel, a "Docteur en Prehistoire" who works for the Terra Amata museum in Nice that currently has an exhibition on firestarting through the ages, he is one of the scientists behind this exposition.
I had E-mailed him with some questions about the fire piston (if he knew earlier records from Europe, pre-1865 records from Southeast Asia and on the distibution of Fire pistons in Madagascar) and the Bamboo-spark/bamboo percussion method.
He apologizes for his late response but has nothing to add to our fire piston knowledge.

Mr Roussel was very content with the "formidable" link to the bamboo-spark method discussion here on BushcraftUK I provided him with. He has written an article on the bamboo percussion method with al the references he knows of and is gonna send it to me by post so I am eagerly awaiting this. I'll let you all know when I have read it

Cheers,

Tom

 

[BOD]

Well done Tom,

I'm off to Borneo for work tomorrow and may swing by the longhouse if there is time. The road is washed away and I understand a bit of a walk is needed.

Ash

 

[Galemys]

Just before the year ended I got a big parcel from France!

Dr.Bertrand Roussel had not only kindly sent me the little article he had written on the 'bamboo spark'/bamboo percussion firestarting method but had included lots of other articles and copied book excerpts with a tonload of information (all in French) on primitive firestarting in general, archeological evidence for different methods of firestarting, news on the 'bamboo-spark' (or bamboo percussion) firestarting method, lots about the usage of the false tinder fungus and some information about a plant that was used as traditional firesteel tinder in Spain.
In one of his books on primitive firestarting ('La grande aventure du feu') there is a chapter on the fire piston with what looks like a complete picture of the history of invention in Europe! There's also some pictures of the early European types of fire pistons and a picture of a painting of asian people using a fire piston (from the Smithsonian collection)

Becky, I will scan and E-mail this part to you soon, I hope you can read French! (or hire an interpreter)

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Galemys]

cheers,

Tom

 

[BOD]

Tom,

part of the painting and text is chooped off on my screen. can't read the whole thing

Any chance of a slighty smaller image?

 

[Galemys]

Tom,

part of the painting and text is chooped off on my screen. can't read the whole thing

Any chance of a slighty smaller image?

Eh that would be resizing the thing? I´ll need to look that up, Instead here´s a direct link to photobucket:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t258/galemys/Firepistonpainting.jpg

There used to be an option that said `go to first post´ (or something similar) that gives you a bigger screen for each post but I can´t see it now.
The full text underneath the image says `use of the fire piston by the Malays of the Phillipines`
I´m thinking of ordering the book so I can see it in colour.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[BOD]

bump for links

 

[BOD]

There are several references to the fire pistons of South India in the JSTOR site. Unfortunately, I can’t read them

It seems that fire pistons were found in Iron Age India in Adichanallur. The links between South India and the Malay Archipelago are ancient with Hindu kingdoms from the peninsula all the way to Bali and Borneo. If so, the idea that the Europeans brought it to South East Asia first is debunked.

Somehow I still think the fire piston came out of the forests to more ‘civilised’ peoples and not the reverse.

If it was indeed a European export, I cannot understand why there is no record of fire piston use by the ‘civilised and metallurgically advanced people of that region such as the Malaccan and Bruneian armourers who made fine artillery pieces and intricate metal crafts. Many examples of their work survive in regional museums and in the West but no fire pistons. They could easily have copied it as their descendants do with DVDs and other stuff .

In a paper on ancient Tamil fire cult there is also a reference to a bamboo fire drill which sounds fascinating.