Traditional flint and steel problems

[Wayland]

As usual, a wealth of information! Well, I've got a tin full of jeans ready to lob on a fire, or on a stove when I get a break from my university work, and I'll get my hands on some cheap linen. Will charcloth from jeans be fine in the meantime?

I've used denim in a pinch but it doesn't work as well as this.

[video=youtube;pmTssR5csdg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpag e&v=pmTssR5csdg[/video]

 

[Phaestos]

Right! Getting some linen!

 

[tombear]

The flax fibres in the excellent video can be got from shops supplying home spinners as flax tops. You used to get them from plumbing supply shops but we got our lots from Wingham Wool Works and a nice chap over in NI who spun the flax wick for my period candles.

atb

tom

 

[Stringmaker]

You can still get plumbers hemp; I have some in my kit as well as flax.

 

[Joonsy]

I've had great success with a tinder tube rather than charcloth.
I bought a cheap cotton mop head from Wilkinsons, used one of the strands and a piece of metal tube from a telescopic aerial.
Char the end of the cotton rope with a flame then pull inside the tube to extinguish. This charred end will take a spark as good as the best charcloth. It can be used many many times.

The photo shows a piece of cotton rope rather than a bit of mop. The mop is far better.

touched by nature

that's neat, i presume the tube is open ended and only needs to be a few inches long to act as an extinguisher and the cord can be any length whatsoever protruding from one end, might make one out of a piece of copper pipe to play with.

 

[tombear]

If you can try linen rope, available from some flag makers, chandlers and bondage shops, in a tinder tube, works even better than cotton and if you don't mind a bit more faffing turn it into slow match with a soak in KNO3 solution Just make sure you pull it well into the tube to snuff it out.

ATB

Tom

 

[swright81076]

that's neat, i presume the tube is open ended and only needs to be a few inches long to act as an extinguisher and the cord can be any length whatsoever protruding from one end, might make one out of a piece of copper pipe to play with.

The tube only needs to be a couple of inches, open at both ends so the rope passes through. The back of the rope has a knot tied to make the overall length shorter.
After playing with it the other day, a mate suggested getting an ember and snipping it off into the tinder bundle, then when the fire is going, char the end of the rope again.

touched by nature

 

[maddave]

Tis sorted !! He had a bad batch of charcloth. Took him a few bags of my stuff around and he hit it off first go !!

 

[Stringmaker]

Tis sorted !! He had a bad batch of charcloth. Took him a few bags of my stuff around and he hit it off first go !!

Excellent; well done.