cotton wool and Vasoline

[jackcbr]

Daft question, how do I mix these two together and use them?

In my mind, it's just a case of smear the vasoline onto the cotton wool and use a fire steel to get going

 

[John Fenna]

You got it!

 

[cowboy]

just make sure you dont touch the cotton wool with the fire steel or it ends up sticking to it so you have a fire ball waving around! learnt from experience!!!

 

[ged]

Yep. And it doesn't have to be petroleum jelly, you can use axle grease, tallow, lard, bacon fat, ear wax... or nothing at all because cotton wool takes a spark very well on its own.

I just lit the stove with lard. I've never actually tried the ear wax but I've looked at the odd cotton bud and wondered.

 

[jackcbr]

Ear wax, I could have saved myself a couple of quid on a tub of vasoline, d'oh

 

[colly]

pound shop cotton wool pads and petroleum jelly.

blob of pj and fold the pad around it means you can carry it in a bag without making a mess.

 

[shogun]

i found out about the cotton balls and vas on here waorks a treat...atb Allan

 

[The Big Lebowski]

Or... You could find many natural tinder's that go up a treat

Just a thought.

al.

 

[Scottishwanderer]

Is it just me who would feel strange buying vaseline?

 

[the interceptor boy]

also in my humble opinion, try teasing out a little of the cotton before you strike your fire steel to it. you only need less than quater of a small spoon into one pad. wilko sell 200 eyemake pads for 90p. open one in half and squeeze a drop in and off you go should last for ten minutes of burning time. cheers the interceptor boy. don't saturate the whole pad!!! with petro!!!

 

[perkunas]

the stuff that I use is eyemake pads soaked in melted paraffin (just melt a candle in a container of some sort). after that parrafin hardens and it becomes totally waterproof. you need to make some shavings to get it ignited though (or use a lighter to get it started)

 

[AussieVic]

Is it just me who would feel strange buying vaseline?

Yes - its just you. The rest of us are using it for fire lighting.

The purpose of the vaseling is to extend the burn time and to offer some water proofing for the tinder. I like to work it in a bit by smearing some on the cotton wool balls, putting them in a zip lock and squishing them around a bit. By the time you come to use them, the vas will have spread around to provide that water proofing.

 

[Aussiepom]

Candle wax does a similar thing to vaseline and is a lot less messy. Just drip about a dozen drops into the centre of each eye makeup pad. It extends the burn time to over 2 mins per pad.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Or... You could find many natural tinder's that go up a treat

Just a thought.

al.

The cotton wool and PJ is in my emergency fire kit along with a lighter and bits of inner tube. I gather natural tinder as I go and store what I dont use for next time.

I think most do this, but practising different techniques is always a good idea imo

 

[leon-1]

Is it just me who would feel strange buying vaseline?

Vaseline is also in small tubs as lip balm (pocket size).

 

[VFR800Essex]

Will a cotton wool ball and PJ take a spark from black flint?

 

[Lister]

I don't think it matters what makes the spark, just so long as it's a big hot spark i imagine.

On that note, I was playing round with some cotton wool, rubber and vasoline t'other day and found a nice technique for making firelighters:

1. using a cigerette rolling tin, line the cigerette rolling section with vasoline
2. Put a large amount of cotton wool into the cigerette section along with a slither of rubber*
3. Close the lid and you *should* end up with a dense cotton wool cigerette coated in vasoline with what can be described as a rubber "fuse"
4. If you have a tealight or candle, proceed to coat the cigarette/tampon whatever you want to call it in wax and voila.

If using a firesteel, you may not want to coat in wax, the wax coating however does help with storage though.

 

[Miyagi]

I was given a lot of really excellent Welsh cheese at Christmas. All of it had a wax coating on it, which I added to my Vaseline and cotton wool collection.

Certainly keeps a baby flame going in a rainy place.

Liam

 

[The Ratcatcher]

During the First World War, an improvised trench cooker was used made from a tin of Vaseline and a piece of "4x2", the flanelette issued in rifle cleaning kits. (source: "Tommy" by the late Prof Richard Holmes) Incidentally, Tampons work better than ordinary cotton wool, and are in the RAF issue survival kit. With a bit of time spent splitting them up, you could start up to 10 fires with one tampon,

Alan

 

[Miyagi]

Sand and petrol in a halved jerry can was popular with my Dad in Libya.

Sometimes he even set fire to the mixture.

Liam