Artificial Tinders

[ESpy]

More of an idea for a kick-about thread than anything else.

What do people like to use for man-made tinder?

By "man-made", I mean either commercially sourced, or had to be made up at home. I'd therefore be inclined to include charcloth in that description.

So, off the top of my head -

For sparks:

Cotton wool
Charcloth
Gelled alcohol (and other liquid fuels, I guess, but care needed)

For flame:

Cotton wool/vaseline mix (not yet tried to see if it'll take a spark)
Rubber shreds
Egg carton cardboard (or sawdust, or paper...) soaked in wax
Metaldehyde tablets
(oops - forgot hexy blocks)

Other suggestions?

 

[Martyn]

Dunno bout the rest, but cottonwool/vaseline goes up great, with very little spark. It burns well, easily and for quite a while. After trying it, I got about 30 balls and rubbed em with vaseline (dont overdo it) then stuffed em tightly into a small plastic aspirin bottle. Only a small fluffed up portion of one ball is needed, so should be good for a few hundred fires. Making em is very easy and very cheap (if a little messy). The results are cheap, light, compact, versatile and waterproof.

 

[alick]

Tampons work for a survival kit tinder. Very highly compressed cotton wool.

 

[bigjackbrass]

Fine grade steel wool is an old standby, which I mainly use if conditions are wet. When I first read about using the stuff as tinder it seemed such an absurd idea that I immediately had to try it. Also, I'm told, handy for those survival situations lighting a fire sparked from a car battery. Never tried that because I don't have a car.

 

[Keith_Beef]

As I mentioned elsewhere: if you do a bit of woodwork, gather the shavings from the plane work, and the dust from saw and drill work.

Keith.

 

[sargey]

the old standby, mountain bike inner tube makes a good, if a bit unpleasant fire lighter. the inner tube has loads of other uses as a source of an elastic band.

if you're a mini/altoids/tobacco tin survival kit person, then one of those tiny tubes of glue from a puncture repair outfit makes a handy addition. just add a drop of glue (smaller than a pea is still enough) to a slice/strip of inner tube and yo have a fire lighter that'll work from sparks. it is so waterproof you can completely submerge it, and it'll still work.

using the innertube for strapping the tube of glue to your knife sheath witha fire steel makes an instant kit for watersports fans. beware salt water with a firesteel though. it'll crumble like a wet bisquit in a few hours.

cheers, and.

 

[ESpy]

Actually, all of my old firesteels have some severe corrosion problems. These are the issue style (as found in the BCB matchless fire sets), and they are probably 15 years old. Crumbly, but there is still some life left in them. Salt water is a pig on pretty much anything aluminium, too - I dread to think what it would do to a Mg fire lighter.

I like the idea of using the adhesive, too.
Oh - and a 9V battery will light the finer steel wools cheerfully.

 

[Martyn]

How do you make charcloth?

 

[Anonymous]

Peter,
I didn't twig the salt water and aluminium thing until I totally trashed a SAK on a sailing holiday a few years back. I rinsed it off with fresh water from time to time during the week, but it often got wet just in the pocket of my shorts. A couple of weeks later the scales and liners were all corroded to bits even though there wasn't a mark on the stainless. To me this was a big reason to dump the swiss army knives and go over to leatherman.

Martyn,
Although I haven't tried it, there are articles around on the web that say the way to make char cloth is to put cotton cloth into a firmly closed metal tin with a small hole (I suspect they mean only a millimetre or so diameter) in it. Then heat the tin over a flame and watch the smoke come come out of the hole. When smoke stops coming out, the cotton has been reduced to char cloth.

This seems very very similar in principle to the work of the traditional charcoal burners, who built a large bonfire sized structure of sticks and branches which was then totally banked over in turf and set to light. The timber would burn slowly over many days while being starved of oxygen and become charcoal. It was a constant job to watch the mound, keep the turf damp and plug any gaps if smoke started to leak out .

Arthur Ransome's novel for children (I think it was the one called "Swallowdale") describes this very well. The book was one of the Swallows and Amazon's series written around the lake district in the 1950's and I feel sure is an accurate depiction of how it used to be done.

Cheers, Alick

 

[ESpy]

Charcloth -

The way I've made it is to use a Callard & Bowser tin with a hole in the top (approx 1.5mm) and some cut-up pieces of old jeans. Heated on a gas stove as low as possible until no more smoke issues, then seal the lid with a small square of gaffer tape. Allow to cool...

Do not do as I did with the first batch and make it indoors. BAD idea. It stinks.

In use, the stuff is very impressive - catch a spark on it, and you have a glowing coal. The harder you (or the wind) blow(s), the brighter & hotter the coal glows

 

[Martyn]

Thanks Peter, gotta give that a go.

 

[Bob]

A quick and easy way to get a piece of charcloth is simply to burn a piece of cotton cloth and then smother it as it turns brown-black. This is not particularly efficient and you get less usable material than by the can method but if you only want a piece to experiment with then it's a lot quicker (plus all you need is a flame - a potential 'chicken and egg' situation here!)

The quality and type of cotton cloth used makes a difference too. Denim material is excellent and easily acquired - a good cheap source is a charity shop (and you're helping them too). All you need do is cut it into an appropriate size before treatment. Other thinner cottons will give mixed results - one old T-shirt of mine produced a charcloth that would not take sparks at all!! (not the sort of thing you want to find out if your life depends upon it!). Conversely, an old triangular bandage produced an excellent charcloth that lit first time, every time. Bear in mind too that some cottons have a coating applied to them - I don't know what it is but it acts like a plastic when burnt and 'curls' the cotton up - an inferior charcloth results.

Good charcloth can also be produced from cotton wadding and '2 by 4' sold in gunshops for cleaning the inside of rifle / shotgun barrels.

Hope this helps :-D

 

[Kev P]

Old cotton tea towels are also good.
One of the best tinders I have found is the fluff collected from the filter of a tumble dryer. It takes a spark for a fire steel superbly and burns with a reasonable flame (unlike some natural tinders such as cattails etc). If you do as much washing as my other half you get an unlimited supply. if you don't have a tumble dryer it might be worth trying your local laundrette.

 

[ESpy]

The drier fluff works well - PROVIDING it is natural fibres. I've been caught out by trying to spark-light a batch after the drier had a bunch of fleeces through it...

 

[bagman]

IIRC the material in tinder boxes was charred linen rather than cotton, anyone tried that?

 

[qweeg500]

The cotton socking material for polishing your car is perfect for charcloth.
It wraps up very tight so you can pop it in a coffee tin nicely. Very cheap from Halfords.
Stick it on your gas barbie for a few minutes and it comes up a treat.

 

[Leon]

Hi All,
Thought I'd chip in with an extension to the cotton wool/vaseline approach that I saw posted on one of the US forums (Bladeforums or Knifeforums, can't remember which).
It involves plastic drinking straws: melt one end closed and using something thin and stick-shaped, push some vaseline-covered cotton wool down the straw (easier than it sounds, honest). When you get to within an inch of the top, melt that end closed aswell.
When you need to use one simply snip off the top, fluf out a bit of the cotton wool and light with firesteel: I timed a small length (1 1/2") that burned for over 5 minutes.
In no time you can have a small bundle of non-messy, waterproof fire lighters to distribute around your kit (especially handy if you use a piece of inner-tube to strap your firesteel to your knife sheath).

 

[al]

duroglit or the brasso equivalent makes exellent man made tinder for spark or flame,also comes in a handy little tin

 

[al]

meant to put the cotton wool type dutroglit on the above post :-D

 

[alick]

The other day I cut a 1/4 inch wide strip from an empty litre "brick" of fruit juice. It needed a flame to start, but then the waxed card burned nice and steadily. Easy to pack a small piece in the firelighting kit, it might be good for moving the fire up from first tinder to small twigs. Take a chinagraph pencil and write on it in an emergency. Cheers.