About silver birch (tinder)?

[Martyn]

Popped up to my dads today, he's got a few silver birch in his garden, I looked one over, a mature tree and it had a nice chunk of bark (several actually) peeling back. I just snapped this off (wont harm the tree). My question is, which bit to use as tinder? The silver, paper like outside will tear into strips quite easily, but looks quite tough. The woody substance behing seems quite hard and well, woodlike.

Which bit is the "super-tinder"?

I'm guessing mabe the silver, paper stuff, shredded up - yes?

 

[Kev P]

Thats the stuff Martin. This white paper layer of bark, if suitably shredded will easily take a spark from a fire steel. The thicker brown bark will still burn well because of the resin content, but is harder to shred fine enough to take sparks as easily.

 

[Martyn]

hanks, I'll give it a go.

 

[Gary]

Martyn,

the best tinder from a silver burch comes off in small thin almost transparant strips and big bundle of these is excellent.

If the bark is coming off in sheets and is a bleached white it may be a paper birch (american import) or it might be that the bark is too dry. The birch sheds its bark to regulate its temperature (being a northenr tree this is important) but its the oils and resins which remain in the bark (natures anti freeze in a way) which burns - watch birch bark nexttime its alight and you'll see the black smoke - point is paper bark has less resin and is a bitch to get to take a spark.

Fortunately most wild birches are silver - most city one aren't.

Good technique with a paper or silver is to shave the bark (peel it off first) and build up a pile of dust (use the back of your knife) this ignites easily and if quickly feed will soon be blazing away.

 

[Martyn]

Thanks Gary, My dad lives in a Cheshire wood, mainly mature silver birch, some oak, beech and sycamore - he has all of em in his garden. The bark was not smooth and shiny all round like you see on a yourng tree, but cracked and spalted. I wasn't sure what to collect, so I snapped off a piece of bark that was sort of peeling back from the tree anyway (it's an old tree, nearly two feet in diameter). The bark is about 3/4 of an inch thick, very dry and hard, with a silver skin.

Hang on, digi-cam to the rescue...

You can see the edge of the bark has "greened" over where its been peeling back from the tree. I took this because it was clearly not going to harm the tree, I thought I'd figure out what bit to use later.

I didn't realise it was the paper-like strips peeling away in layers that was needed, there was lots of this on the tree too. I'll know for next time.

 

[Tony]

You should have seen the piece of bark I tried to get to catch off of a spark the first time I tried it :rolmao: Now I have bits of bark everywhere! My 5 year old son collects it all the time, I get home and there’s a pile of tinder waiting for me, matchstick twigs, etc

 

[Gary]

Martyn that lump of wood is too old, too thick and I would guess lacking a lot of resin - but it is perfect for the scraping technique and the dust scrapped and piled on the white side would burn fine.

For a tinder bundle you should be think fluffy - the fluffy the better in fact

 

[Matt]

There's often some air dried twigs available on birch trees if you are after some kindling too.

Younger trees tend to be better for collecting tinder - before the bark ridges and hardens. Keep you eye out for the razor strop or birch bracket fungus too - there's all sorts of firemaking fun to be had with birch trees :-D

 

[Martyn]

Thanks guys, I'll have to go visit my dad more often, the area around where he lives, is peppered with literally thousands of em. Plenty of sycamore, oak and beech, but mainly silver birch.

Tip, dont pitch your tent under a sycamore tree. The "dew" that decends from them is horrendously sticky and will ruin your tent/tarp.

 

[bagman]

that "dew" is almost certainly aphid fras (dont know if that is how you spell it or not)

When you spend most of your life trying to extract sugars from plant sap you need to go to the loo a heck of a lot :-D :roll:

 

[martin]

Birch bark for tinder and kindling.
If you take your knife and cut into the tree about 1.5mm deep and run it down the tree the bark can then be peeled off. It should be yellow on the back, whats left on the tree is green (this is the inner bark, this contains some starch and can be used as a famine food). You can ring bark the tree in this manner without doing it any harm. Scrape or peel the outer white papery layer from what you have removed this will ignite with a firesteel. The yellow backed layer (which looks and feels a bit like leather) you have left should be folded up concertina fashion and put into the flame from the scrapings. This will catch fire readily,but it must be folded or it will curl up and die (LOL). The smell from burning birchbark is great. Also this outer layer of bark can be used to make various items from containers to canoes.
(Young trees are best)

 

[Anonymous]

Birch bark for tinder and kindling.
If you take your knife and cut into the tree about 1.5mm deep and run it down the tree the bark can then be peeled off. You can ring bark the tree in this manner without doing it any harm.

Hi Martin,

In the name of conservation - I have to disagree with you.

When collecting birch bark for tinder, you should NEVER take your knife to a living tree, you should only harvest what the tree is naturally shedding.

By ring barking a tree (albeit, leaving the inner bark attached) you are still causing major damage.

The outer-bark of a tree is there to protect the delicate inner-bark (the xylem & phloem, the trees water and nutrient transfer systems) from the natural elements - including fungal attack, paracitic insects and hungry mammals.

Also, if the tree does survive, it will be left with a big ugly scar. A damaged tree does not heal and repair in the same way we do, it simply covers the damaged area.

As practitioners of Bushcraft (and survival skills), we have a duty of care to the environment, so please tread lightly!

OK, I'll stop ranting now!

Best regards,

Ben McNutt

"Nature does not belong to man, as he so fondly imagines. He belongs to it." - Grey Owl, 1936.

 

[Anonymous]

I,ll admitt it doesn't look "pretty",but life never is. but like I said it doesn't kill the tree. What you are left with is a dark brown band around it. Every time I've taken birchbark in this manner the tree has survived. For firelighting you only need a small amount (no need to ringbark). Its only to make containers and you only need to that if your pushed. You should never ringbark any other tree because it will kill it. Thats why you should eat a squirrel every week.

 

[martin]

Oops forgot to log in, silly me

 

[Richard]

I'm sure Martin wasn't advocating ring-barking trees (unless absolutely necessary and certainly not for tinder). But on a general note (ie not in relation to Martin's posting) I would like to support what Ben said in his reply.

As someone who is both a professional conservationist and a part-time bushcraft instructor, I feel that it is crucial to set a good example whenever we practice our art. At the site I use to teach, there are numerous mature birch trees which are needlessly scarred by other users of the site who take their knives to the trees. There are also copious amounts of litter left around the campfire sites, presumably left by the same groups. These visual remains of poor-practice make the site much less appealing for other users and may in turn lead to further abuse.

As these users are normally children, the responsibility must lie, in part, with their adult leaders to teach them a better way (there is more than enough naturally-shedding birch bark on the very same trees). I feel that we in the bushcraft community equally have a responsibility to lead by example. This will only stand us in good stead when we are talking to landowners about using their sites to practice and teach.

The greatest value of bushcraft is its ability to foster a deep respect for nature and understanding the importance of not damaging the environment which supports us when we 'harvest' its resources.

 

[Viking]

The best way to lit a fire with birch bark is to take the outer thin layers and put it on a thicker (inner layer) of bark. The outer layer will easily start burning and when it does you roll up the outer layer so you will have a roll and can then blew from one side making it burn more. This way you got a good start to make a fire.

Birch tree is a very usable tree, here in sweden it has been used for ropes, tea, in bread and lots of other things.

But as someone else said, dont cut in living tree it will just damage the tree, but if you find a dead tree you can the oppurtunity to gather some birch bark for later use.

(My english is not that great =)

 

[Tony]

Your English is fine :biggthump One thing you have in Sweden is good sized birch trees, here they are generally smaller than yours.