Extenders
- Thread starter Biddlesby
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Ordinary rotten wood punk it the most abundant and effective coal extender to be found in woodland environment. It carries a coal nearly as well as tinder fungus and can be blown directly into flame. Perhaps I should make up a photo series showing how this is done. There are a number of folks who have never seen this I suspect.
Jeff Wagner said:
Oh go on then Jeff
Biddlesby said:
In the absense of either true or false tinder fungus, the humble Cramp Ball fungus serves me very well.
ATB
Ogri the trog
Dried out birch polypore is another useful one. Punch a hole through it and thread a withy through the hole to carry it around.
In Primitive technology 1 (A book of earth skills) there is an interesting article on:
Polypore Fungi Fire Extenders by R. Allen Mounier
Storm also posted an intersting thread here a while back
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=7397
In Primitive technology 1 (A book of earth skills) there is an interesting article on:
Polypore Fungi Fire Extenders by R. Allen Mounier
Storm also posted an intersting thread here a while back
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=7397
As in my thread about willow fibre, the pith from inside a split mature willow (as long as it's dry of course) works great as an extender. Very much like the punk that Jeff describes, but it can be sod to blow to flame sometimes. It has the advantage of being available in relatively huge quantities when you find a suitable tree to gather from (I have a couple of pieces in the shed right now that must total about a cubic foot) it does no harm to gather the stuff from living trees as if it's the right stuff to hather it is already dead, and it will often be as dry as a bone even when gathered in poor weather as it comes from within the trunk of the tree and is therefore often protected from the weather but the wind can get to it. As it's so pithy (doh!) it weighs next to nothing like the softest balsa wood.
When I was kid we had a storm that badly damaged many of the big willows along the river close to home and the following Summer my mate and I gathered huge quantities of the pith, put into old onion sacks and used it to build a raft to mess about on the river with. It worked well for the first few days but being so soft the pith soaked up water before long and the raft became too heavy to use.
I don't really expect you to gathering enough to make a raft, but it goes to show just how much of the stuff you can gather in the right place.
When I was kid we had a storm that badly damaged many of the big willows along the river close to home and the following Summer my mate and I gathered huge quantities of the pith, put into old onion sacks and used it to build a raft to mess about on the river with. It worked well for the first few days but being so soft the pith soaked up water before long and the raft became too heavy to use.
I don't really expect you to gathering enough to make a raft, but it goes to show just how much of the stuff you can gather in the right place.
One of my favourite extenders is the bullrush (cattail) seed head. Its a nice 'extender on a stick', where you just pull a small clump of the seeds out, drop in the coal, and lightly put the lump back on top - smoulders away quite happily and makes a good coal carrier - you can get anything up to 30-45mins out of one rush.
Make sure you put the coal in at the top, not at the stem end or it falls off
for my usual nests, I tend to use a birch bark pieces (really fine - thin tiny curls - sit and pick at a tree for 10 minutes), combined with natural fluffs - clematis seeds, mullein stem fluff, dry elder pith etc - made into a neat ball - then all of this surrounded by a combination of bigger pieces of birch bark, dry wild grasses etc. I usually take the grass stems which are say 30cm long, and overlay them in alernating directions a bit to get a weave effect. Then I 'bend' the grass stems in half and hold them at the bottom - this creates a rounded pocket with a handle at the bottom. The rounded nest I make more spherical then pop the extender bundle into this. the handle is very useful for handling the nest and dealing with it once its on fire
Make sure you put the coal in at the top, not at the stem end or it falls off
for my usual nests, I tend to use a birch bark pieces (really fine - thin tiny curls - sit and pick at a tree for 10 minutes), combined with natural fluffs - clematis seeds, mullein stem fluff, dry elder pith etc - made into a neat ball - then all of this surrounded by a combination of bigger pieces of birch bark, dry wild grasses etc. I usually take the grass stems which are say 30cm long, and overlay them in alernating directions a bit to get a weave effect. Then I 'bend' the grass stems in half and hold them at the bottom - this creates a rounded pocket with a handle at the bottom. The rounded nest I make more spherical then pop the extender bundle into this. the handle is very useful for handling the nest and dealing with it once its on fire
Biddlesby said:
Have you tried scrapping the inside of the birch bark with a knife,it gives you a nice fine powder that you can add to the coal to extend it, i just used it myself today and it works a treat or how about Cedar bark again just scrape it to get fine fibres.
It might be helpful if you could give us some idea of the environment that you can usually forage in. I'm not being awkward, but if it's garden and allotment stuffs that are easiest available, then that's different from pond and marshy materials, or pine woodland plants/fungi. Folk will mention what they find useful from similar areas.
If you can get a chance to try the 'bullrush' heads, they're a real goodie It's astonishing how much stuff one head will explode into if left to dry out when broken open at all!
Cheers,
Toddy
If you can get a chance to try the 'bullrush' heads, they're a real goodie
It's astonishing how much stuff one head will explode into if left to dry out when broken open at all!Cheers,
Toddy
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Fields, small woods, hedgerows, that kind of area?, but no pond materials like reedmace, how about fireweed, greater Rosebay willowherb? We call it fire crackle when we use the dried hollow, fibery stems; border mallow and the like works the same way and dried out winter stalks from thistles and mugwort (use the dead leaves as well, but carefully, it's an old cleansing herb, a hearth herb) work too. I used the papery thin tubes of old bluebell stems last week. I find the leaves from grain stalks, like oats, wheat and barley very good; the fine peelings from birch, or dried willow bark too. Even the fallen leaves from holly work.
'Nests' can be made quite effectively, from gathered and wrapped into a kind of wreath shape, from the thin twiggy tops that come from the birches, but I do like the fungi best; either Fomes f. or Betulina piptoporus for my area. I don't know what you find in yours, there seems to be a lot of cramp ball mentioned on the forum as available south of the border.
Enjoy the course , and will you do a write up so the rest of us get an idea of what was covered?
Cheers,
Toddy
'Nests' can be made quite effectively, from gathered and wrapped into a kind of wreath shape, from the thin twiggy tops that come from the birches, but I do like the fungi best; either Fomes f. or Betulina piptoporus for my area. I don't know what you find in yours, there seems to be a lot of cramp ball mentioned on the forum as available south of the border.
Enjoy the course
, and will you do a write up so the rest of us get an idea of what was covered?Cheers,
Toddy
