Tinder tips

[rich59]

Thanks Jeff. I will have another go later in the week.

I have a thought that the key feature of mullien pith is the ability to cut it so thinly? A hypothesis to be tested. Material that can be sliced very thinly. Hmm that might include root vegetables. Perhaps cut something thinly while wet - would then dry even thinner. Probably talking rubbish.

I have another thought on sparks. So, so many fly off in random directions and are wasted yet were strong sparks that lived for a while. They are not easily caught, but may just bounce off surfaces. If I could create sparks over a funnel held over the tinder, they could lose there velocity and drop neatly onto the target. Again, purely speculative.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

I have another thought on sparks. So, so many fly off in random directions and are wasted yet were strong sparks that lived for a while. They are not easily caught, but may just bounce off surfaces. If I could create sparks over a funnel held over the tinder, they could lose there velocity and drop neatly onto the target. Again, purely speculative.

Ahh... providing a bounce shield is what your your thumb is for....

 

[rich59]

Have been playing with my flint and steel today. I have come to some conclusions.

1) October in damp conditions outside is not an ideal time to get the best out of borderline tinders.

2) At this time I cannot get mullein pith to take a spark. I specially sharpenned the knife, cut the thinnest slivers I could, put them right up to the edge of the flint and managed to get about one or two out of a couple of hundred sparks to sit on the edge for a moment. No joy. Of course, being closely applied to the flint's surface it is less likely to catch as there is a lack of air coming up from underneath and the flint will cool it.

3) I cannot get dried artist's conk to take a spark. I tried Storm's way of spraying sparks over the upturned bottom surface. I also tried it onto the fibrous layer. Ferrocerium sparks catch this part but not flint and steel. I tried thin slivers of both as well. I will try again in a few months - next summer.

3) Using a funnel to collect sparks is viable. You stuff your target tinder down the nozzle, balance the funnel on the top of a glass and strike sparks over it. Most short lived sparks don't make it to the nozzle, but some quality sparks roll down and then sit on your target. My mullein slivers would not catch ths way either.

I also did a bit of microscopy of various piths. They all looked the same - a network of hollow tubes with space in between. This is not my picture - it is a lot better quality, but approximates to what I saw

I then tried putting heat to 3 different types of pith - thin slivers - elder, mullein and raspberry. Mullein was the only one to have a self sustaining glow that consumed the entire sliver.

The next time I have a go at mullein and other piths I might try the advice given with charcloth - present lots of layers of my target material with the edges stacked up and exposed to the sparks. That will maximise the target area of material that might catch.

I did light some genuine char cloth with some sparks as a sort of control.

Finally I got a coal by handdrilling elder onto pine to consol myself.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Richard - Can you please show me your flint and steel?

 

[KIMBOKO]

My tests of tinders for flint and steel seem to concur with you rich59, I've never got a pith to take for more than a split second. I thought it was only me and everyone who said it was possible was taking the pith.
I've also failed with Cat-tail.
The only naturals that I have had success from are dried and teased Tinder fungus, dried and teased Artist conk (the darker layer) and dried Alfreds cakes.
I was thinking about extracting Potassium Nitrate from animal excrement as a natural way of pepping up recalcitrant tinders.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

I'll try to take some photographs of the process this weekend.

 

[rich59]

Richard - Can you please show me your flint and steel?

Here's the fellows. Note not a lot of sharp edges left on my flints!

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Thats a good set and it really ought to work. The striker looks hefty enough to make a hot spark. The greatest difference I can see between yours and mine is the thickness and therefore edge angle on your flint. Mine tend to be much thinner and have a more knife-like edge.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

I took a mullein stalk from the garage which has been exposed to high humidity for several days as its been raining here. I split the stalk, sliced out a sliver of pith from the center. I chose a piece of flint close in size to yours althought the edge is thinner as you can see. The spark caught on the fifth strike and burned back from the edge a bit by the time I could get the camera focused.

Another thing I just though of....make sure the edge exposed to the spark is end grain.

 

[rich59]

Thanks tremendously for all this. Can't thank you enough.

Can you orientate me on your first picture? I can make out a thumb but not much else. There is some white stuff over something brown over some whispy white stuff. If the white stuff is pith then it must be fresher than mine as mine is a dirty grey colour throughout. But then your pith in the 3rd picture looks more beige.

When you say "end grain" do you mean that the edge of mullein pith exposed to the sparks is along the line of the mullein stem? Certainly I have been trying to catch the side at right angles to this, so that can be altered.

The piece of mullein pith in the last picture looks to be a millimetre or so thick which is thicker than I was cutting it yesterday. Was the end exposed to sparks also this thick or did it taper down to a sharper edge?

I will need to find and break up some more flint anyway. I think I know how to get sharper edges like yours

Thanks again.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Sorry for that indistinct photo. Here is another showing the size of the mullein slices. Yes, I present an end rather than a side. This also seems to be a helpful trick with woodpunk. I suppose it offers a more open pore structure upon which the spark can gain a foothold.

 

[firemaker]

Hi Rich59
I saw this thread a few days ago and thought wow! another tinder for the flint & steel, I tryed in vain off and on for two days to get this to work with the pith from a small O.D. Mullien stalk, I tryed cutting the pith along the length very thin I couldnt get a spark to catch to save my life. Today I thought I would give it a go, and found a large O.D. about 1 inch mullien stalk that had sat around out side for some time before I brought it in the house a few weeks ago to use in my fire piston, It would catch well in the piston so I knew it was dry, the pith is gray all the way through, I would gess that its 2 years old, I then cut this diferant from the other, I cut across the end of the stalk, very thin, put it on my flint as in the pic, and on the 2nd strike got it to catch and burn. Very cool! It works ! Thanks Jeff

firemaker

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Excellent! Mullein in a bit more difficult to use than milkweed pod so you are aleady a step ahead. Now apply the same technique using wood punk.

 

[rich59]

I am very glad that my exploring this has helped someone else! Really!

I have learnt how to make better sparks by putting more weight behind the steel. I have learnt how to send a higher proportion of sparks above the flint than below it by being careful about my angle of strike.

My mullein is prob 2 or 3 years old and the pith is grey.

I think my next move will be to bring in a sample to really dry out in the hot water tank cupboard for a while. I was trying a dusk yesterday and it was very humid indeed. Getting things dry can only help.

Firemaker - what is an O.D.? What did you cut your mullein crossways with - knife or saw?

 

[firemaker]

(O.D.) overall diameter--1 inch around, and I used a knife to cut. Wood punk ? Ok will do.

 

[rich59]

Just a thought on why one mullein pith not behave like another. Might be the diameter of the stem? I was using pith from a stem with a diameter of less than half an inch. The pith seemed quite dense. In the thicker stem it might be looser material and therefore might get more air to it and burn better. This thought was inspired by trying some random herbage stems for hand drills last weekend and noting the piths varied a lot.

As I have a few more mullein stems now (thanks KIMBOKO) of varying sizes I can try this out.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Slice it thin and put it as close to the edge of the flint as possible. Then concentrate of spark transfer as opposed to spark catching. Good luck.

 

[rich59]

I did have another go with very thin slices of a thick mullein stem. No joy but I think getting the spark to pause on the edge is what I am not achieving. Of course it could be that your American mullein is better than the Uk stuff, but I don't believe it for a minute.

I will keep having a bash now and again.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Rich - I dont recall if we discussed this before however I suggest slicing the pith longituginally rather than a cross section. I cant imagine there would be a significant difference in pith from one side of the pond to the other.