what wood to make a fire piston?

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Hi just a quickie,
what sort of easily available, (from a DIY type shop) wood could i use to build a fire piston?

I'm assuming something heavy like Oak, or mahogany?
cheers

 

[launditch1]

The one i had was made of pine,it did have an aluminium tube inside though.
Do you know of Heigham sawmills in Norrige?They have an good offcuts box..

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

The one i had was made of pine,it did have an aluminium tube inside though.
Do you know of Heigham sawmills in Norrige?They have an good offcuts box..

I'll have to look them up!
I recently used cushions(sawmill) and they tried to rip me off, my brother said they did the same to him.

a pine fire piston?
I would have thought pine is too soft, i have a fair bit of i think it's pine from some work I did, It's tanalised and i'm not sure what effect it would have to the eventual piston.

I tried to make one using scrapped tight fitting walking poles, Globetrotter gave me, it was going well i put tinder in and it was getting warm.

problem was i used wood to bung up the ends of the poles I hammered it in to make sure it wasn't moveing anywhere!
it had a good seal but not air tight, after chopping up a rubber glove and a foot or so of leccy tape, and plumbers tape, it worked....almost, hot tinder!
I thought more force is needed, so iput it on the floor, pushed with everything I had.....

bang!:yikes:

What the...****... was that!

basically I'd just made a POP gun!

when I realised what had happened (and the wooden bung had stopped bouncing around) it was funny, then I looked at the parts....the bit of wood had shot through a very tight hole, through the rubber glove and through the Leccy tape in one go!

was that a pop gun or an Air-gun I'd made?:theyareon

 

[keen-edge]

just wondering if a length of dowel would be ok and drill a hole into a block of wood? may work
http://www.timcom-ptc.co.uk/dowels-149-c.asp?gclid=CPvoj_-iyJ8CFdoB4wodCSUJKA

 

[Ogri the trog]

I've made fire pistons out of metals before now, but not yet succeeded in making a wooden one from scratch.
I have bought wooden one, made from "cocobolo" wood, very hard and dense and even that is likely to be sealed internally as part of the process. The momentary pressures inside a fire piston are colossally high, certainly high enough to make many untreated woods porus. Even thin-walled metal tubes are likely to flex outwards enough to vent air past most seals, which is why some pistons are metal tubes within a hard-wood body. I'm afraid electrical tape just won't cut the mustard if used to seal a fire piston.

I've heard about oak being used to make fire pistons, but after drilling the bore and achieving smooth sides, you'd have to seal the bottom end-grain by dripping superglue down inside it. I recon the walls themselves would have to be about as thick as the bore diameter to prevent any flex.

Good luck

Ogri the trog

 

[Galemys]

I have never made a totally wooden piston myself but I know that the pine, oak and beech rods I have used for the piston are too porous and must be treated with superglue or similar to make them work.

So what can you use?
Lignum vitae works for sure (I have got one made of this wood), probably because it is sealed by it's own resin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae

In this thread over at Paleoplanet some more woods are mentioned by Jeff Wagner, a US fire piston maker:
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/reply/275023/t/Fire-Piston-Attempt.html#reply-275023

Cheers,

Tom

PS I know that PatrickM once posted a picture of a beautiful fire piston that was made of elderberry wood, I don't know how he sealed the bottom though

 

[jojo]

North Heigham Sawmills belongs to Cushions. The guy who works there is a bit of a grumpy ol' git (just like me ) but can be helpful when he gets to know you. I went there last Saturday and they had some Ebony, Cocobolo, Osage, all dense woods that probably would make good fire pistons.