Tinder

[cranmere]

What sort of tinder do people use? A while back I had fun playing with various of the tinders that you can buy but as I did so I was aware that some of them like kapok would not have been available to my ancestors in the UK until relatively recently.

It pleases me to use the things that my ancestors could have used so I'm currently waiting for the wormwood in my garden to go to seed so that I can collect the fluff, and I've been peeling off the papery outer bark from the wild clematis that grows in a local hedge. I shall also be out looking for cramp balls shortly. Birch bark is local so that is good, and resinous wood is easy enough to find.

Then there is char cloth, I'm about to experiment to see whether linen or cotton works best.

 

[Toddy]

I'm demonstrating prehistoric firelighting next month, so I'm putting together my basket of good things

So far I have chagga, amadou, mugwort, birch bark, cattails, dry straw, firecrackle, cramp balls, thistledown, clematis bark, and small tied faggots of a mix of things that are resinous and dry and will catch, like heather and dried pine fronds, apple twigs and birch bark and sweetgale, stuffed with the dried mugwort leaves.

For tinder think catch the spark or ember, nest it in stuff that will keep the heat even with air blown through it, set it to flame, and then keep it burning. Firelighting's fun

Feather sticks can be truly excellent, but not the kind of thing one expects from stone tool technology, bone shavings will catch, but they stink to high heavens, do-able with stone tools though; hearth boards, I break open an old elder branch, instead of charcloth I char the cattail head or the amadou.


Interested to hear what kind of things you gather for it

cheers,
M

 

[bushwacker bob]

Do you take the cattail down off the stem before you char it?

 

[sunndog]

My natural tinder pouch is very boring but very reliable
Birch bark, thisle down, and a small piece of fatwood for natural rocket fuel

Charcloth, its great stuff but in all honesty I can't be bothered to make it, the above works plenty well enough
When I did make some I'm almost sure I used a tea towel. (The smooth kind rather than terry towel)

 

[Toddy]

Do you take the cattail down off the stem before you char it?

No, I just very carefully happ it up and scorch it bone dry and toasted. If you set it on fire while it's still tight and smooth like velvet, and then blow that out but gently keep it smouldering until it blackens, then suffocate it and let it cool down still tight, it works fine.
Like matchcord, with the burnt end that's been snuffed out.

cheers,
M

 

[British Red]

Feather sticks can be truly excellent, but not the kind of thing one expects from stone tool technology,


cheers,
M

Now thats an interesting challenge ..my buddy just made me a basalt knife

Wonder if I could get a viable feather stick with it?

 

[Toddy]

I think you could, but I truly question whether stone age man would have used an edge that he'd put real effort into to carve a feather stick

I've seen Russ do it with some totally off the wall things, and they were still better than mine

M

 

[British Red]

I think the real "art" of firelighting is to know what tinder can be found in a given terrain.

For example processed cedar bark is an awesome tinder - but that's naff all use if there are no cedar trees about! When I lived on the Downs, clem bark could be had everywhere, around here, common reed is the most prevalent tinder but I haven't seen wild clem anywhere.

Knowing what can be burned is intellectually interesting, but its much more relevant to know what is locally available that makes a good tinder.

 

[British Red]

I think you could, but I truly question whether stone age man would have used an edge that he'd put real effort into to carve a feather stick

I've seen Russ do it with some totally off the wall things, and they were still better than mine

M

I kind of doubt it as I suspect that stone age man had nothing to light a feather stick with. They are easy enough to light with a ferro rod, and its possible with flint and steel, but I can't see it with pyrites and flint - too dull red a spark and too small. In a stone age world a good nest of rubbed up straw and a hand drill I think.

 

[Toddy]

I think the real "art" of firelighting is to know what tinder can be found in a given terrain.


Knowing what can be burned is intellectually interesting, but its much more relevant to know what is locally available that makes a good tinder.

I agree wholeheartedly, and I'd add in seasonality too.

cheers,
M

 

[Mesquite]

I'm demonstrating prehistoric firelighting next month, so I'm putting together my basket of good things

So far I have chagga, amadou, mugwort, birch bark, cattails, dry straw, firecrackle, cramp balls, thistledown, clematis bark, and small tied faggots of a mix of things that are resinous and dry and will catch, like heather and dried pine fronds, apple twigs and birch bark and sweetgale, stuffed with the dried mugwort leaves.

No honeysuckle bark Mary?

 

[Toddy]

Funnily enough, no, though I'm looking out the front window just now at a honeysuckle that's rapidly smothering a beech hedge
It doesn't seem to go to the dead and withering stage that normal three year old stuff does ....I think it's because it's always damp and mostly shady where it's growing. Maybe
I'm pretty sure it'd make good rope though, and I'm becoming tempted to try it

atb,
M

 

[Clouston98]

I only use things I've made/ foraged for myself these days. I use chaga, amadou, cramp balls, birch bark (yellow birch produces the best in my experience) and char cloth I make myself and often just feather-sticks.

 

[cranmere]

I agree wholeheartedly, and I'd add in seasonality too.

That's an interesting point. I wonder whether people harvested and stored tinder materials along with other seasonal items? I've always assumed that they did.

 

[Bishop]

Every time I'm out on a bimble I tend to grab a few handfuls of what's about and have a go on the spot with the firesteel, it's quite surpirising just how many types of seed fluff will not support agressive combustion and struggle to even smoulder despite encouragement from a butane lighter.

I've found the straw like stems of BlueBell work well and the old flower heads in particular will readily catch a spark. Easy to spot and plenty about this time of year, they also appear to naturally dry out very quickly and despite some showers last night I found plenty that were suitable for getting todays brew on. I say straw like but actually they are quite soft and don't stab you quite the same way straw does so if out for a few nights I'd be be tempted to use little bundles of them as a mattress. My personal favourite however is Pine bark fibre (the inner side of the outer bark) this fluffs up quite nicely with a little scraping like cocunut matting, though it can be a tad stubborn to get alight the widespread & year-round availability does have some advantages.

Emergency Use Only Glycerel Trinatrate aka 'Nitromin' or 'Nitrolingual' mediaction, a tongue tingling mix of nitroglycerin, ethanol and propylene glycol. Takes a spark well, burns hot and fast. Not strictly part of my tinder bag but sadly a new addition to my EDC.

 

[davidpingu]

I'm in that sort of awkward mid stage where the last few times I've been out I've forced myself to only make do with what I could find but I've always taken a backup just in case.

I'd like to feel confident enough to leave my tinder tin at home and stick with it but I'm not quite brave enough yet. Perhaps if I can keep it up through winter...

I recently gave fat wood a try off some dead larch. A friend cut a sort of knot off a downed tree and passed it to me so I gave it a go. Scraped up the cut area with my blade in much the same way as you do Birch bark although it isn't quite so simple and I made my knife quite sticky being covered in resin. It was much more stubborn than I find birch but it eventually caught with a few attempts.

 

[Hibrion]

I usually pick up stuff as I go along. In the forest nearest to my home there are a lot of birches, and plenty of downed pines form recent storms, so that usually means birch bark and fat wood. Feather sticks are available everywhere really, so I use them a lot, even when firelighting at home.
There are a lot of ash trees around too, but I've never seen a cramp ball, oddly enough.

With regard to feathering a stick with a flint knife: I tried it once. It was working ok, but it would have taken a long time to get a useable stick.

 

[DomC]

Here in Florida where I live there's alot of natural TINDER to be found, the most abundant is what we call monkey hair or palmetto fibers. It's a reddish brown fiberous matter found on the trunk of the saw palmetto at the base of the leaf fronds. It resembles the orangutan's fur. It is the best TINDER especially in damp weather because it is usually dry. A spark from a ferrocerium rod is all it takes to ignite. I always carry cotton balls smeared with petroleum jelly as a reliable man-made tinder also. Fatwood which is plentiful here and is another viable fire accelerant and is waterproof to boot...

DomC

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[GGTBod]

I like to collect locally near my camp, usual suspects are micro fine naturally fallen birch twigs which have been caught by others tree branches below the birch twisted up into a faggot, birch bark from any fallen birch and dried grass, i also always have in my kit waxed hemp string and the shavings from my woodworking projects incase of emergencies, i have charcloth made from old denims and after seeing how useful it was in extreme wet conditions on my last adventure with Backwoods SS i have added fatwood to the kit as a backup.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

As pretty much a complete novice the only thing I've used is char cloth, I've manage to get it to work with both a flint and steel, and a ferro rod.

I tend to use the ember on the char cloth to ignite some flax, that I then use to get the fire going. Works well. I am on the hunt for some amadou and some king alfreds cake, but as I am having to learn from books and the internet, I'm a bit nervous of what I am looking for.

This weekend I went camping with a friend who wanted me to teach her how to light fire without matches. She took to it really well, using the same basic char cloth and flax that I've been using for the last few years. So much so that she woke me up yesterday with "fire's lit, where did you put the tea bags?" Then to prove it wasn't a fluke got up this morning and lit the fire too. When I lit my first fire with a flint and steel, it felt great. But teaching someone else to light a fire, and seeing them do it without any input from me, felt even better.

Now I want to hunt down some natural tinder in the local area. This may take some time...

Julia