Single flame

[Jeff Wagner]

Here is a challenge for your consideration. Let's assume that use have need of a single isolated flame (as opposed to a flaming mass of tinder ) with which to light your new stone oil lamp or primitive torch for example. You may use any of the primitive means of fire making, but not ferocium nor any means invented after say....year 1800. How would you proceed...? ):

 

[tomtom]

how long does it have to burn for?

 

[hootchi]

How about a concertina of birch bark (a spill) lit from a small mass of burning tinder? :?:

 

[arctic hobo]

Easy. Get a cord of any kind (natural cordage), whack one end into a pottery saucer of animal oil, and set light to the other. :biggthump

 

[Jeff Wagner]

To restate, the challenge is to create by primitive means, one isolated self-sustaining flame that burns long enough to ignite some other combustible of your choice. It might be a candle, a wick or a cannon fuse. :yikes:

 

[arctic hobo]

... what did I do wrong? It's all primitive, and it's one single flame :?:

 

[hootchi]

... what did I do wrong? It's all primitive, and it's one single flame :?:

How are you gonna light the wick in the first place? I think you need to make a burning tinder bundle, and use it to light a birch bark spill and use that to light the 'stone oil lamp or primitive torch'.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

How are you gonna light the wick in the first place?

This is precisely the mission.

I think you need to make a burning tinder bundle, and use it to light a birch bark spill and use that to light the 'stone oil lamp or primitive torch'.

Nope - No flaming mass of tinder nest to light your single flame from. Create the single flame directly. ):

 

[arctic hobo]

Right. Well I assumed fire by friction, ball of tinder - enough to light a wick. :?:

 

[RobertsonPau]

I would strike a match. First used in Europe around 1530.

Or is this cheating?

Paul

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Sorry. Matches came along after 1800...

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmatch.htm

):

 

[RobertsonPau]

Jeff

Same site, another answer:

9. Matches: China, Sixth Century AD. The first version of the match was invented in 577 AD by impoverished court ladies during a military siege. Hard pressed for tinder during the siege, they could otherwise not start fires for cooking, heating, etc. The matches consisted of little sticks of pinewood impregnated with sulfur. There is no evidence of matches in Europe before 1530.

Ah, well I thought it was too good to be true.

Paul

 

[Jeff Wagner]

An interesting bit of history in any event.

 

[Toddy]

Bow,cord and a hollowed out elder (as though for a whistle) branch, hearth from pine or ivy or ????(sorry forgotten now).

The bow drill itself gets very hot, and if you bow fast and furious, you can make it smoke. Blow through the tube and you get a flame. Doesn't last long, but it is a flame.

Toddy

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Hmmm...can you ignite something with it?

 

[Toddy]

Yup, very, very dry tinder Seemed a bit pointless at the time, but it ought to be enough, if you're quick, to light ooooh say a Gaz stove or a Trangia or a good dry, scraped free of excess wax, candle wick.

Why, have you had a brilliant idea? Or has something worked so well that it's worth a challenge? :mischief:

Cheers,
Toddy

p.s. just had another thought, a skinny tube of very dry birch bark inside the hollow elder spindle. When the elder flares up, push it out a bit and it ought to catch, that should to keep the flame going long enough to be a feasible match. Bit of a bother though.....someone else had an idea along these lines, didn't they, sorry

Toddy

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Since you have actually done it, I accept your method. I know of a few more ways to do this. Here is one.

To light a candle with flint and steel

Lighting a candle is pretty easy, but the char must be made of fairly
heavy material to make this work. Char made of lighter weight material
just won't absorb enough melted wax, so that is is why I recommend old
blue jean material for char cloth.

The char should be about two inches square, or a little larger, rolled
tightly as possible, and for beginners, wrapped with thread ( several
clove hitches) to retain the roll. Hold the char on top of the flint
with the end of the roll at the edge of the flint where the spark will
be struck, so that the spark will catch on the end of the roll.

When the end of the rolled char begins to glow, place the roll next
to, and in contact with the candle, or candle drippings, and blow
gently. Wax will begin to melt and flow onto the char. At this point,
the char will begin to smoke, continue to blow gently until the smoke
thickens, then remove the char from the wax, and blow with a little
more force. The melted wax is vaporized by the coal and will burst
into flame. Light your candle, or place the burning char on a piece of
wax in your wet tinder bundle. The now burning char acts as a wick for
the bit of wax, and depending of the size of the piece of wax, will
burn for several minutes or more. [John Dearing]

 

[Toddy]

Okay, it's neat :biggthump *but*, it presupposes that you have gone prepared with charcloth, what would you use out in the wild that you could make from scratch? I'm a weaver and I know how long it takes to make twill cotton cloth from raw fibres.
What about a very dry birch/mallow/????whatever twig wrapped at the end with a fluff of fibres from flax or hemp or the like, with some wax shaving mixed through them. A spark from flint will flare those fibres alight, the wax will melt and gather around the tie off point and voila you've got a wick and thus a match.
George talked about making little olives of resin and charcoal on twigs, if that was used as a core and the fluffed flammable fibres wrapped around it, would that go up and would it last as a match? Oh I can see some fun here

Had a look at your site; *nice* toys. My brother/husband/sons/ have been playing around with firesticks for a little while with very indifferent success :?: I must get them to have a look.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

I hate the very term 'primative' It conjures up Rouseau images of noble savages doing all this one with nature stuff with arcane and almost magical technologies to the shame of our post Copernican societies. The disposable butane lighter is merely a variation on a flintlock rifle or flint and steel, which in turn are refinements on spark producing stones. The ancient genius who first observed sparks from crashing rocks and transferred the concept spatially and temporally to creating deliberate fire later makes Bill Gates look like a sissy. A re enactor lighting a clay pipe with flint and steel is no different than a goretex clad snowboarder snapping that butane lighter on a packstove. The most common methodology used is to carry an ember wrapped in moss or suitable leaves or in a ropelike fire bundle- the antecedent to the matchlock and modern fuse.Which assumes our rapidly dissappearing hunter-gatherer societies haven't heard of magnesium bars, matches and bic lighters

 

[Toddy]

I hate the very term 'primative' It conjures up Rouseau images of noble savages doing all this one with nature stuff with arcane and almost magical technologies to the shame of our post Copernican societies..........Which assumes our rapidly dissappearing hunter-gatherer societies haven't heard of magnesium bars, matches and bic lighters

I'm with you on this one Chris. Such a no no in Archaeology isn't it? It's an offensive term when used to describe very capable people, as though they are somehow *less* human by not being part of our frantic rat race.
I can more accept it when describing methods, i.e. 'Primitive technologies', but then that does exclude the firesteels, refined magnesium bars and disposable lighters

How about we keep the term for, "Can you make it for yourself, using only natural materials that you have sourced, without the use of power tools". We could add the qualifier that something you have bartered from a like-minded indiviual may be considered acceptable.

Hmmm. Rule out goretex, cordura boots, foam bed pads, nylon cords.......and I'm back in linen sark and woolen arisaid and courrans sleeping on bracken and heather, but I don't know how the rest of you are going to dress ):

Interesting thread, they call it 'Bushcraft' nowadays, don't they

Cheers,
Toddy