Amadou processing

[tom.moran]

im going to be making my own amadou and have been reading about ways to process it. i just wondered what you guys have done, what you found worked, didnt work, was a waste of time etc

 

[Clouston98]

First I sliced the cuticle off (outer layer, then seperated the amadou (trama) layer from the pores (little tubes). ThenI used fine white ash from a hardwood fire and water, boiled for one hour, used just enough solution to cover the amadou I was processing. When finished payed it out to dry about 2 feet away from the fire, nice and warm but not enough to set it smouldering. As soon as it was dry, about 5 hours later for the thin strips it was brilliant, took sparks from a flint and steel and a ferro cerium rod brilliantly! It was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done!

 

[tom.moran]

great! that sound better than boiling for a week!

 

[Clouston98]

great! that sound better than boiling for a week!

Good stuff!

Forgot to add, I added about a cup full of ash to around a litre of water, nothing exact , just to give you an idea of how much .

Hope this helps!

 

[Siberianfury]

you dont neccesarly have to boil it, but i have found that boiling it with urine does help increase its combustability as it introduced ammonia into the material. the most impotant thing is to break apart the fibes, when fresh cut the fungi is very hard, the trick is to gently hammer it, twist it, stretch and compress it as much as possible, which will lead to the material becoming fuzzy and how amadou should look. good luck

 

[tom.moran]

if i boil this in the kitchen, is it going to stink? got a shed load of it, ready to go

 

[the interceptor boy]

not in the kitchen unless you want to sleep permanently in the shed for the rest if your life. you could try just rubbing a slurry of ash in the amadou itself. or boil urine + ash + amadou. or dry amadou itself with flint and steel or a ferro rod. I usually cut the hard cuticle away and slice thin piece if amadou the thickness if a 2piece coin then use a ferro rod or flint and steel. I am away. that is my way. it works for me.
cheers the interceptor boy.

 

[tom.moran]

oh ok, so i just put it on the hob on a low heat with the extractor fan on full, will my house mates kill me?

 

[Toddy]

No, it'll be fine.....well, so long as you're not doing the whole boil it in stale pee for 24 hours type recipe, it'll be fine, iimmc
I boil it up for dye just in plain water, and the stuff that comes out of the dyepot is soft and spongy rubber like. Just let it dry off a little and then stretch it out. If it's thick I beat it out. A round stick on a wooden board or log works well if you let the stick 'bounce' on the amadou rather than beating it into fragments.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[tom.moran]

it did start to smell a bit and we have a house inspection tomorrow. what i think ill do is spend the next week getting all the raw stuff i have ready for boiling then do it in the garden on a hobo stove or something

 

[Stringmaker]

If you are using fire anyway to boil a solution of wee/water/ash etc then the quickest way to process it is to simply char it.

Treat it like a piece of dried punkwood and the charred part will take a spark nicely. Obviously it has to be dry before you char it!

That said I do fancy having a go at the boiling wee process; I want to see the look on people's faces when I do my fire demos and let them handle a piece.

 

[milius2]

ahhh, a long dream from far away.... I never made a decent amadou, lets hope you will!

 

[tom.moran]

not if i keep slicing my fingers open! twice tonight! i took a piece of the scottish un-process amadou and used a flame to get it going and it kept on glowing, going to cut all i have up and then process it i think. this wont be for a couple of weeks though as i have about 3kgs to get through and id like to keep my fingers

 

[Dogoak]

I hope your fingers are ok Tom, take it easy mate.

 

[ateallthepies]

I bought some processed Amadou and just could not get it to take a spark with a flint and steel. I wore a divot in the steel trying.
So I ended up charring the lot and it made an excellent spark taker that usually catches first strike!