Failure.

[Wayne]

Hi.

I tried to get a fire started in a small woodland on the beach in Saturdays downpour just for the practice. Failed miserably to get any tinder to lite.

i was wondering if you esteemed folk had any tales of woe that would soothe my battered ego.

Wayne

 

[Raz]

I got a Swiss volcano flask for Christmas.
The flask is flawed, but good fun, and way smaller then a Kelly kettle. Anyway, it won't pull through air when it has the bottle or cup on it. (So a bit pointless!) You spend ages juggling; taking the cup off to get a decent pull, and flame, putting it back on to heat the water, stuffing in bits of fuel through the teeny tiny whole, and then repeat..
But I couldn't get it going at all today, with only damp twigs and no wind. So after walking through some very boggy woods, the Mrs. wasn't impressed when I couldn’t keep thing alight, and thus my promise of hot coffee!

 

[sargey]

firelighting in the rain is great fun. trying to make fuzz sticks without getting them soaked can be a real bastid of a job. some days the only option is to break out the esbits, hexy blocks or alcohol jelly. if you don't mind cutting the green wood you could use four forked sticks and a few leafy branches to roof over the fireplace. it sort of depends on how little trace you want to leave for an illicit luch stop.

i remember one incident when i was out test driving a new super duper survival tool in the rain, (just for laughs) it was just too ungainly so i chucked it back in the ruck and went back to my trusty three quid fifty frosts viking knife. :-o i couldn't even get a proper fire going in the stick stove till i knocked it over, then it worked well but was useless for brewing up. part of the problem is having to do everything at arms lenth so you don't get the runoff from your nose or hood dripping into the heart of the fledgling fire.

i can't remember which ray mears book says that some days you just have to wait for the rain to stop. more sensible than the macho "one match, one fire, whatever the weather" philosophy.

cheers, and.

 

[Gary]

While working on a course last year (wont mention the company) myself and another instructor were demo'ing fire by friction and neither of us managed to get an ember - after an hour of our trying we sent the students off to carve their sets while we continued sawing and sweating.

To cut a long story short a student got an ember before we did!

But we also used the lesson to our advantage because we were able to point out that neither of us actually gave up trying. And more to the point it also reenforced the point that sometimes it isnt easy thus encouraging those struggling with bow drill for the first time.

 

[Roving Rich]

Raz - So I asked for one of them Volcano Flasks for Christmas and didn't get one :-( . So are they any good ? Do you boil the water in the cup or tha flask?
Let me know cos I was thinking of buying one
Cheers
Rich

 

[Mikey P]

Tales of woe and humiliation? Where do I start? Most recent:

In the Gulf earlier on this year after a bivvy nihgt out in the desert. I had taken an MSR XGK multifuel stove with me as I thought it might be useful (with daytime temps of over 45 deg C, there was not a lot of call for hot drinks...). My colleagues had been laughing at me for days over the fact that I'd lugged this thing around (even though it wasn't that heavy) and that morning, it was a bit cooler so I deceided to make some coffee.

My missus had sent me out this cool cup with a filter on it for making decent coffee and I was really looking forward to it so I got the stove out and made a big flamboyant thing of setting it all up, determined to make everyone else jealous. I put some diesel into the fuel cannister and pumped it up. By now, there was a bit of crowd and, after managing to prime it, I turned up the fuel and....pooofff! A cloud of stinking black diesel fumes and no flame. Looking like a 'Tom and Jerry' cartoon character when something has blown up in their faces, I tried again. Same problem. Third time - absolutely nothing. People were laughing so much they were hurting and I had no coffee and a right sulk on.

After we got back to base, I checked my stove (which was now famous as a 'weapon of mass dieselification') and found that, not only was it clogged as I'd failed to clean it since I'd last used it, it had the wrong jet in for diesel. I will never live this down.

Preparation, preparation, preparation.

 

[Doc]

Pal of mine in the TA had similar ribbing on one night exercise. He'd put his tin of chicken curry on the Hexy stove to heat up in the usual way (pierce top of tin and stand it in boiling water). Feeling peckish, he decided to eat his tin of fruit salad while he was waiting. Opens tin to reveal....chicken curry. Meanwhile, the fruit salad was coming nicely to the boil, much to everyone's amusement.
Delia Smith, eat your heart out.

 

[Raz]

Hey Rich,
For a tenner, the flask is O.K.
It would do fine in sunnier, drier climes. But here it doesn't fair so well.
It is a lot smaller then a kelly kettle, and better suited to backpacking use. You have the ability to boil enough water in the bottle for 2, and cook in the cup. Ideal for my fishing shoulder bag, and if it worked well, would be the best thing ever. Unfortuneatly, that isn't the case.

I'll compare it to my 2-1/2 pint Kelly kettle. By comparison; it is a huge hassle to use. It takes about 10 minutes to get the boil, and you need oven gloves to pick the bottle up!
The base unit will also topple over with the presence of any wind, or careless hands. It's totally unstable when you take the bottle / cup off.
The main problem is that it needs constant attention. It doesn't pull through air, and thus does not burn hot. You can stick some longer, thicker twigs in the sides to raise the bottle or cup, and create a larger exhaust. But it's a flawed design.

In practise, almost any alternative does it better. If you want to burn natural material, make you own (drill some holes in a trangia mess kit) or use a Kelly kettle. An esbit and a metal cup still rules the roost in my backpack when I can't have an open fire. The Kelly kettles for the car.

 

[Roving Rich]

Thanks Raz - I suspected as much. I'm a great fan of my Kelly Kettle too. Its just too big to go in a pack. I was hoping the Volcano flask was the answer but i guess not. You saved me a tenner anyway.
Thanks
Rich

 

[Jon]

Hi Rich
Don't forget the Kelly Kettle comes in two sizes. 2 1/2 pint is the big one, the little one is 1 pint. Same design but will fit in your rucksack. :-D

Got mine from our own Jack
http://www.woodlandorganics.com/shop/misc/index.htm


Jon

 

[ally]

hi guys

interesting reading about the probs with the flask as i've found it to be a fantastic bit of kit, i carry solid fuel blocks too which are very convenient but twigs etc still work well

i presume that when your using the bottle that it is resting on the pin (thats part of the lidded wire doings thingy) and not on the twigs?

 

[Raz]

Solid fuel blocks work, but then why bother with the flask?
Why not use an esbit, or alternative?

Resting the bottle on the pin doesn't leave a big enough exhaust, and the bottle being so low stops any decent flames, and furnace-like activity getting going.
I put the bottle higher by resting it on longer twigs, which helps a little.
Not having the ability to fuel it vertically, and not having a vertical chimney (like the Kelly kettle), present obvious problems, and the fire tends to smoulder, and not burn hot because of it.

It works, but it doesn't work well!
But. for £10, it's a bit of fun, and it can have it’s place.
For me; I can set up my rods and take my time to gather ideal fuel, and tend to the flask. If you want something to light, and let it do it’s thing, I’d say look else ware.

 

[sargey]

perhaps rather than spend ten quid you could make a dogfoodtin stick stove and suspend your billy over it in the normal manner. it has all the easy rubbish burning advantages of a kelly kettle, though obviously not as fuel efficient. but at least you can heat soups and noodles and the like, stuff you can't heat with a kelly kettle.

apologies for the very poor photo.

did i mention that my dog is a pyromaniac too?

cheers, and.

 

[ally]

raz, ive found that the esbit stove cant carry the water or hold the food ive cooked but each to their own :roll:

 

[DMBackpacker]

I got a Swiss volcano flask for Christmas.
The flask is flawed, but good fun, and way smaller then a Kelly kettle. Anyway, it won't pull through air when it has the bottle or cup on it. (So a bit pointless!) You spend ages juggling; taking the cup off to get a decent pull, and flame, putting it back on to heat the water, stuffing in bits of fuel through the teeny tiny whole, and then repeat..
But I couldn't get it going at all today, with only damp twigs and no wind. So after walking through some very boggy woods, the Mrs. wasn't impressed when I couldn’t keep thing alight, and thus my promise of hot coffee!

Hi all,
I know this is an old thread but just joined.
I had the same problems trying to burn solid fuel and twigs in my Volcano. Then one day I tried a Pepsi can alcohol stove and found that it worked very well in the Volcano.
The stove I used is about an inch and a half in height; it just fits in the Volcano with enough room to fill and light through the square opening (a small fuel bottle helps). Not sure how much fuel it uses, but it consistently boils a full flask of water. YMMV, might be worthwhile to try.
Hope this is helpful.

 

[falling rain]

Mikey P and Doc thanks for those very funny stories. They cheered me up a lot. I had a pretty bad day yesterday at work, and I'm feeling majorly hacked off today, but those couple of gems have helped me to get back in a positive mood.

Cheers ):

 

[jakunen]

Pal of mine in the TA had similar ribbing on one night exercise. He'd put his tin of chicken curry on the Hexy stove to heat up in the usual way (pierce top of tin and stand it in boiling water). Feeling peckish, he decided to eat his tin of fruit salad while he was waiting. Opens tin to reveal....chicken curry. Meanwhile, the fruit salad was coming nicely to the boil, much to everyone's amusement.
Delia Smith, eat your heart out.

Saw something similar when I was helping a schools cadet force for their inspection day.
Spent a few weeks teaching them basic campcraft.
The Brigadier came to see my 'squad' pitch tents, prapare rat-paks, and stuff. They proudly showed off pitching a pup tent, knot tying. All good so far.
We walk into the centre of the 'mess' and there is a cadet happilly cooking chicken in brown sauce by placing pierced cans into a mess tin of hot water on a hexi stove.
BOOOOMM
He hadn't pierced ALL the tins and I know had a BG with hot gunk dripping down his dress uniform and a large piece of chicken on the peak of his cap...

Thankfully he saw the funny side of it (just as well as he was my CO), and told the kid we all learn by our mistakes, and it actually tasted quite nice.

Needless to say the kid got a roasting from me, but the boss and I laughed about it over a brandy that night.

 

[falling rain]

Now that's veeeery funny Jak. Nice one. I'd have loved to have seen that ):

 

[Ginger]

Failures are great – they can open your eyes to just how much is really possible. I saw an experienced bushcrafter light a fire in incredibly difficult conditions because of a failure. It really opened my eyes.

A few years ago, I signed up to do two week-long bushcraft courses. It rained every day but one of the 12 days for which we were out there. On the Saturday between the two courses we went to the pub, planning to come back and cook up supper over a fire when we got back.

I'd earlier collected up a whole bundle of clematis bark and worked it into a fine tinder about half the size of football.

When we got back from the pub at about 11pm in the dark and the torrential rain, I discovered that I'd left the tinder bundle on the ground, where it was soaking. We had no matches, etc.

Our experienced chap – a chap from Wales – told me to wring the tinder out and then bend over it to protect it from the downpour while rubbing it against my thighs and armpits to get it as dry as possible. Meantime, he went off into the wood (mostly young sycamore trees) in the dark and the rain to find materials for bowdrill.

He came back after half and hour with fresh-cut, dead sycamore and fashioned a bowdrill and hearth. He then got an ember going with it and got a fire out of my pretty-much-dry-by-now tinder bundle.

All this was in the dark and while it was still raining, starting with a sodden tinder bundle.

There in the rain, we got a fire going and cooked supper.

It was very impressive to watch (and be part of).

Think of the implications: here's a modern person who has honed their skills and their confidence to the point where they knew it would be worthwhile to try this... Now imagine how capable our ancestors must have been. They lived with this level of exposure all the time.

It was a great lesson for me. Being desk-bound, I don't have great arm muscles and have real trouble maintaining the energy/friction required to operate a bow-drill. But this experience opened my eyes to what is possible when you know your stuff.

 

[jakunen]

Ginger,

Very inspiring post! Well done and thanx for sharing that one.