The mother of all tinders

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Lodian

Nomad
May 23, 2007
355
0
32
Peterhead, Aberdeenshire
The other night at my local cadet sqn I brought down my firesteel for some people who had asked me about them. At the same time we were using brasso wool polish for there belts. When i came up with an idea a couple of us at break went just outside the ground took some of the brasso wol placed it on the ground(concrete not grass) and with one strike of the firesteel it was in flames it burns longer and at a stronger flame than cotton wool and at £1 a tin you can hardly complain.

Ryan
 

Ogri the trog

Mod
Mod
Apr 29, 2005
7,182
71
60
Mid Wales UK
Lodian,
With a little practice, you can do that with natural forraged tinders. Its great to know which commercially available stuff will light a fire, but you can really amaze your mates by trekking off into the woods and re-appearing with a handfull of tinder that'll do the same job. Birchbark, Cramp-balls and feathersticks (especially when its raining) all work well:cool:

ATB

Ogri the trog
 

Lodian

Nomad
May 23, 2007
355
0
32
Peterhead, Aberdeenshire
Lodian,
With a little practice, you can do that with natural forraged tinders. Its great to know which commercially available stuff will light a fire, but you can really amaze your mates by trekking off into the woods and re-appearing with a handfull of tinder that'll do the same job. Birchbark, Cramp-balls and feathersticks (especially when its raining) all work well:cool:

ATB

Ogri the trog

I managed to do it by whittling a a really resinous peice of pine and using those shaving also gives a god flame.
Whats cramp balls?
 

RobertRogers

Need to contact Admin...
Dec 12, 2006
361
0
62
USA
Yep, and the beauty of using the natural stuff is that you then know something about it when the commercial material is not available.
 
cramp balls are a hemispherically shaped black fungus that grows on Ash trees, often in damp locations. When they are dry inside, it will readily take a spark which can be spread by blowing to create a sort of charcoal like object. Put it in some dry grass/bracken etc and blow it into flame.

Just done spot of googling and there's a huge mass of info on this page here, about cramp balls nearer the bottom and lots of other firelighting methods:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~mjf/bushcraft/fire.html

or do a search on this site, there's bound to something :)

woodwalker
 

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