Punk wood tinder help please

[BOD]

I normally have little need for using punk wood as the forest here has so much variety in the way of dry fibrous material to make a tinder bundle for my ember.

Punk wood in a rainforest is often slighty damp so my use of punk has been as an extender when there have not been enough dry sticks etc.

Today I tried to place my ember in some dry to the touch punk and while it took the ember and smouldered I could not get it to flame. The punk sandwich around the ember produced smoke and glowed but that was all.

I know that the parts not exposed were not as dry as what i could see but is there some trick or technique I can use to get it to ignite other material like a dry leaf and so srart a fire?

 

[British Red]

I usually use it as an ember generator rather than a fuel source. When its rotted in that way I believe most of the material that produces pyrolising gas (flame) has gone.

What I do use it for though is charring in a tin - makes a great char cloth alternative then and so easy to renew

Red

 

[Mike Ameling]

In my experience, dry punky wood will hold that spark/ember, and it will spread throughout the chunk of punky wood. But it won't give off enough of the right type of smoke to catch fire and burn with a flame. For that you need less-punky wood. And you generally need additional air blown on those embers to get them hot enough to start burning those other materials.

So, as stated before, there is something different in the type/quality of the smoke given off by punky wood. It will smoke, but only might turn into flames.

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - that ... alleged ... grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Lush]

Isn't it a fact that it also matters what kind of wood the punk is from? Maple is good for example... I have some punky wood collected that does not really take a spark from a flint.

 

[Longstrider]

The only punky wood I use is the dry,dead pith from within the trunk of a willow tree. It's often easy to get at as the trees split themselves open with age, and stays dry because it's protected from the weather in there.
It works great as a coal extender but is usually all but impossible to blow to flame on it's own.
There are two substances I get from inside a willow trunk, one is the pure pith which is very much like balsa wood, and the other is a fibrous matting type material made up of thousands of tiny strands of root-like bits. The latter can be blown to flame, but is still often reluctant to flare.

Between the two different types of stuff from willows I once managed to keep a bow-dill produced ember 'alive' for 10 hours and burned less than 1/2 lb of it in all. I just measured a lump by eye and timed how long I'd be willing to risk leaving it unattended. I found that a piece about the size of a cigarette box lasted half an hour, (Left on the ground on a pretty windy evening) so I returned every 1/2 hour and transferred the coal to fresh piece about the same size each time. Less windy conditions would mean that it simply burned slower I think. I don't think the lack of a breeze would cause it to go out. I've seen willows with dead middles set on fire by lightning that burned for 5 days, the sparks from the glowing core coming out of rotted branch stubs like a giant roman candle in the wind

 

[Mike Ameling]

Isn't it a fact that it also matters what kind of wood the punk is from? Maple is good for example... I have some punky wood collected that does not really take a spark from a flint.

It is very hard to find punky wood that will catch a spark from a traditional flint/steel without any other preparation (charring) first. Catching a spark from a modern ferro-cerrium rod is a little different. Those sparks are hotter, more numerous, and easier to get/catch.

Some people have had good luck with maple, and elm, oak, basswood, even willow. But it also tends to vary from one tree to another.

Punky wood has it's uses.

Mikey - that ... alleged ... grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Lush]

... Catching a spark from a modern ferro-cerrium rod is a little different. Those sparks are hotter, more numerous, and easier to get/catch....

I meant a modern ferro rod actually as there are not too many things in nature that can catch a spark from a traditional flint

 

[Scrumpy]

I had some good success recently from an Oak tree, I pulled back some bark to get at the punk and found a mat of powdered punk and spider web, mostly. It took a spark from a modern flint pretty much first go, smoked a lot and got quite hot so I used some damp grass and blew it to flame in a few minutes.

 

[rich59]

Today I tried to place my ember in some dry to the touch punk and while it took the ember and smouldered I could not get it to flame. The punk sandwich around the ember produced smoke and glowed but that was all.

I know that the parts not exposed were not as dry as what i could see but is there some trick or technique I can use to get it to ignite other material like a dry leaf and so srart a fire?

When I experiment with a new material one thing I might do is a flame test. Expose it to flame and see what happens. If the material won't produce flame with direct exposure to another flame then it is unlikely to ever produce a flame.

I suspect as others are saying that many punky woods won't flame. So, you can use it like any other ember to light a tinder bundle that you know can take an ember to flame.

There is an outside possibility you could take it direct to a single leaf tinder. You can do this with char cloth, but I haven't got it to work with other embers so far. - take a thin, dry leaf. Fray one edge and then roll into a cigar with the frayed edge inside. Square off end and stuff lighted ember down into end of cigar. then blow hard. With char cloth and 2 blows you get flame. With other embers it probably depends on the possible air flow through it as to how hot you can get it.

 

[Lush]

...When I experiment with a new material one thing I might do is a flame test. Expose it to flame and see what happens...

simple but smart!

 

[HawkesNest]

I have found two types of pine punk wood so far here in Utah that make good extenders for an ember that keeps smoldering on there own. It's all about finding it in the right stage of rot/decay. The darker brown stuff turns into powder when you pinch it between your fingers. The lighter color punk wood seems to have been infested with some type of bug first along with regular decay. I like to use a nest of pine needles or dry leafs or grass with the punk wood to get a flame going. Example

Who else has some pictures of punk wood that works good for them?