cramp balls and birch bark

[rich59]

Good challenge this.

Decided to leap out there (down the shed) and have ago. Only found half a cramp ball and a modest amount of birch paper bark. I can see the problem now!

No, I can't do it either - yet. I improved things with a number of modifications, but ran out of materials. I substituted cramp ball with tinder fungus so I got a few more goes, but eventually ran out of birch bark for now.

Improvement 1 - crumble the cramp ball. This way a got a hotter mass of ember.

Improvement 2 - vastly increase the volume of birch bark cigar - aiming to spread the glow from the cramp ball into the silver birch and go from there. Seems birch bark is not keen on glowing! - Cold, smoking, or flame it seems happy with but reluctant to glow.

Improvement 3 - sandwich the whole tinder between 2 bits of wood - so the heat is trapped in. - This did allow my birch bark to glow better but I ran out before I got sufficient heat to ignite.

Possible idea for future - I suspect that the glowing red heat is driving off the rapidly vapourising birch oil before it can get hot enough to ignite (the smoke). Therefore I would try again with 2 bundles of birch bark - a very large mass with the crumbled cramp ball heart and a second separate birch bark cigar to quickly poke into the heart of the glow at the the hottest moment - so the oil gets into the heat rather than be driven away from it.

A foraging trip needed to get more materials!

 

[mazeman]

Good challenge this.

Ain't it just. I had another crack this afternoon (before I saw your post) and still only managed a lot of sweet smelling birch bark smoke Hot, very hot cramp ball - and a nice little burn on my left index finger - but no flame! I like your ideas though, rich, and will try them out tomorrow.
I will get a flame, I will get a flame, I will get a flame, I will get a flame, I will get a flame, I will get a ....

 

[Toadflax]

Ain't it just. I had another crack this afternoon (before I saw your post) and still only managed a lot of sweet smelling birch bark smoke Hot, very hot cramp ball - and a nice little burn on my left index finger - but no flame! I like your ideas though, rich, and will try them out tomorrow.

And don't wear artifical fabrics! My man-made fleece has lots of holes in it now from the flying sparks!


Geoff

 

[mazeman]

And don't wear artifical fabrics! My man-made fleece has lots of holes in it now from the flying sparks!


Geoff

T'is how you tell a bushy person -

My 'badges' so far are:
small bald patches on my left forearm from testing my knife.
A charming little cresent moon scar on the knuckle of my second finger ( left hand again! ) from a slip whilst scraping a firesteel with the spine of my Mora.
A regular grubiness of finegers due to incessant messing about with charcloth, crampalls and, at the moment, Emil's 'Eureka' fire piston igniter!
I'm sure there are others but they escape me just now.

 

[spamel]

Ratbag managed flame from a bow drill ember on birch bark, so it's not impossible. We had discussed it and decided the best way to go about it is to gather a lot of very fine papery peelings, then buff them up good. Any small bits falling out of the buffed bundle should be capturead and put to one side, this is the magic dust that will catch alight. Once you have your ember, add it too the birch bark dust and then add the buffed bundle behind it so that when you gently blow on it the dust won't blow away! You'll get a flame eventually, but blow very gently at first!

Good luck!

 

[mazeman]

Been out in the garden again with those cramp balls and birch bark....

Been here:

Been here:

Been here:

and here:

Tried the crumble and the magic dust, tried buffing and huffing and puffing on a big fat birch bark cigar. AND STILL NO FLAME!!!!!!!!!

but I'm still here: :swordfigh

 

[mazeman]

I'm still in here with this crampball/birchbark combo, and still not got it to work yet. Has ANYONE discoverd the answer?

 

[rich59]

I had another go last week. Still no joy. Unfortunately my access to the materials for this is limited. There are lots of combinations of set up I haven't yet tried.

Seems it is hard to get the critical heat needed to ignite the volatile oils in birch bark from cramp ball alone.

 

[Buckshot]

I did it some time ago (a wet day last summer IIRC) about 3 cramp balls on the floor all glowing and a load of birch bark torn into strips on top.
Took a while I agree and a lot of blowing but it did get there

Cramp balls were dry and taken from the Landy dash board, bark was wet and taken from a dead, rotting tree.

Must admit I thought I was doing something wrong when it didn't go up straight away. Maybe not...Keep going, you'll get there

Mark

 

[mazeman]

about 3 cramp balls on the floor all glowing and a load of birch bark torn into strips on top.

Mark

I'll give this a go! And out-number the bark :AR15firin

 

[mazeman]

Just been out in the garden playing with this old chestnut, again, and used avariation on the Buckshot approach.

I did it some time ago (a wet day last summer IIRC) about 3 cramp balls on the floor all glowing and a load of birch bark torn into strips on top.
Took a while I agree and a lot of blowing but it did get there

Mark

I used the biggest cramp ball I've found to date (about the size of an American cup cake) and a handful of paper birch bark!
And yes, I got a flame. One h*** of a lot of resources and a wolf's worth of huffin' and puffin' but I did get a flame.

Not sure I'll have this as my prefered method.

Thanks, Buckshot, I can now let this rest.