Homemade fire piston (and it works)!

[Galemys]

Got my first two embers out of a homemade fire piston yesterday!

It was made out of 12 mm diameter copper pipe with an end cap and a piece of dowel, sanded down to the right proportion and fitted with an o-ring. As this was actually version 4.0 of my fire piston attempts (the previous three were too big in diameter or too short in length) I was rather surprised that I got an ember at the second attempt! (and what a lovely sight it is, glowing charcloth!). The second ember however, took me about 50 thrusts so I think I have to perfect my technique a bit

. After this second ember I tried to light a piece of crampball with the piston but it didn´t work, presumably due to crappy technique...

Sooooooo, two questions for the eh pistonados on this site:

Has anyone tried crampball in a fire piston? (and did it work for you?)
How long does the ember stay glowing? I was rather disappointed when my first ember died after some 10 seconds (and yes I blew on it gently), I had expected it to stay burning for a little longer.

Tom

PS Please tell me I´m the first Dutchmen on this site with a working selfmade fire piston

 

[Ogri the trog]

Wow Galemys,
12 mm pipe - I'm impressed - most pistons I've seen are around the 8mm diameter mark. How big is your tinder cavity? and how big are your arms?
I've ignited Cramp Ball in a home made piston (8mm) and in one of Jeff's Cocobolo ones. Ember glowing time I find to be about 10 seconds (with charcloth) which should be enough to ignite a second piece of tinder as an extender.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Good work on the piston development. I will put up a photo later to tease you with. The entire piston, including plunger cap is about 2.5 inches long. It lights on the first try.

 

[Ed]

Nice one tom. As Ogri mentioned above, crampball should work fine. Make sure you are not packing loads in... it compresses quite a bit, and when compressed it is harder to light... just put enough in to fill the tinder cavity, no more, dont try and cram more in. This may not be your problem, but i've had a couple of people try and cram as much crampball in as possible and they failed to get it to light.

Ed

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Say....in the interest of cultural exchange I would be pleased to change some North American tinder fungus for your cramp balls. I am always interested in trying new materials. Curious name...cramp balls...

 

[Ed]

Curious name...cramp balls...

It used to be said it was a cure for cramp.... hence the name.... It also goes by the name of 'the coal fungus', 'carbon balls' and 'king alfred cakes' though its latin name is 'Daldinia concentrica'.

Ed

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Here is the tiny one. I could go a bit smaller... but I'm not sure where to put the tinder.

 

[demographic]

Here is the tiny one. I could go a bit smaller... but I'm not sure where to put the tinder.

Wow, so it IS possible to make a fire piston that doesn't look like a ladies sex toy.
That one looks OK, some of them are not exactly the kind of thing that I would like to have fall out of my kit infront of too many people

 

[Galemys]

Wow Galemys,
12 mm pipe - I'm impressed - most pistons I've seen are around the 8mm diameter mark.

Thanx for all the replies! :You_Rock_

Ogri,

12 mm is the outside diameter, inside is about 10 (it's just standard copper pipe), so I 'm not the incredible Hulk
Also, the o-ring is still leaking a bit because if I push slowly or at normal speed I can push the piston totally inside with little resistance. It's only with great speed that I feel the "air cushion".
Tinder cavity is about 4 mm in diameter and 3 mm deep.

I started out with 15 mm pipe but that was a bit ambitious...(and before that I tried a bicycle pump...)
I am currently trying to make one out of 10 mm aluminium pipe (inside diameter 8 mm) but the supplier had no end caps so I have to improvise on that.

Will try cramp ball next!

Tom

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Wow, so it IS possible to make a fire piston that doesn't look like a ladies sex toy.
That one looks OK, some of them are not exactly the kind of thing that I would like to have fall out of my kit infront of too many people

I will admit that on rare occasion I have been asked where the batteries go...

Concern about possible tool mis identification is precisely the reason why the Bushmaster model was developed.

More alternative design concepts