I made a fire piston out of a piece of fatwood, found at the last bushcraftmeeting here in Holland.
As fatwood is saturated with resin it is airtight, unlike most other woods, so it is fit for making a fire piston
The fatwood stick was cut in 3; one piece for the bore, one smaller piece as handheld for the piston (with a shallow borehole for the piston), and the last piece for making the rounded piston stick with some help of my Mora knife and sandpaper/electronic drill.
The bore was made with a column drill.
The rounded piston stick was glued in to the handheld piece after which a shallow tinder cavity was drilled.
To make an airtight seal I used some lime tree inner bark (just picked up as it was from a decaying stick lying in the street here in Amsterdam). I wetted the inner bark and wound it tight around the piston end (= without turning it to cordage first). By forcing this with a 'screwing' motion into the borehole the bark was kneaded into an airtight seal. I used olive oil for lubrication and some chaga (Inonotus obliquus, found at the site of the Dutch bushcraftmeeting as well) as tinder to make the first coal.
Total length circa 8.5 cm (just smaller than the firecrest in the background), bore 4.3 cm deep & 8.5 mm wide.
Cheers,
Tom
As fatwood is saturated with resin it is airtight, unlike most other woods, so it is fit for making a fire piston
The fatwood stick was cut in 3; one piece for the bore, one smaller piece as handheld for the piston (with a shallow borehole for the piston), and the last piece for making the rounded piston stick with some help of my Mora knife and sandpaper/electronic drill.
The bore was made with a column drill.
The rounded piston stick was glued in to the handheld piece after which a shallow tinder cavity was drilled.
To make an airtight seal I used some lime tree inner bark (just picked up as it was from a decaying stick lying in the street here in Amsterdam). I wetted the inner bark and wound it tight around the piston end (= without turning it to cordage first). By forcing this with a 'screwing' motion into the borehole the bark was kneaded into an airtight seal. I used olive oil for lubrication and some chaga (Inonotus obliquus, found at the site of the Dutch bushcraftmeeting as well) as tinder to make the first coal.
Total length circa 8.5 cm (just smaller than the firecrest in the background), bore 4.3 cm deep & 8.5 mm wide.
Cheers,
Tom
