Random Fire Starting Items

[Jonsaiga]

Remove the bulb from a a mini-mag-lite, insert a small peice of snare wire into each hole and touch it to 0000 grade steel wool( same deal as the 9v).

Remove the reflector from and large flashlight (C and D cell mag lights work well), stuff tinder up into the hole where the bulb usually comes through, angle at sun until focused beam hits tinder(same concept as magnifying glass).

Place a quarter sized pile chlorine powder(pool shock which is also good for h2o treatment) on tinder pile, pour on a tiny amount of brake fluid(only enough to wet it). It takes about two minutes but it will self-ignite.******DISCLAIMER******DO NOT PUT THIS MIXTURE INTO A CLOSED CONTAINER OR IT WILL EXPLODE*********

[buck1032]

Place a quarter sized pile chlorine powder(pool shock which is also good for h2o treatment) on tinder pile, pour on a tiny amount of brake fluid(only enough to wet it). It takes about two minutes but it will self-ignite.******DISCLAIMER******DO NOT PUT THIS MIXTURE INTO A CLOSED CONTAINER OR IT WILL EXPLODE*********

Shock treatment and brake fluid works well, however DO NOT BREATH the smoke!!!!

Just to throw this out there to see if anyone had heard of or used it: Calcium carbide and water. If I dont get a reply I wil post later today how it works.

[Guest Broomhead]

If you can get some metal potassium, store it in an airtight, completely dry container. It reacts violently with water and will ignite. Wrap it in plastic/cling/saran wrap and drop it in a small open container of gasoline, under your tender, and back off. The gas dissolves the plastic and the potassium reacts with the water in the gas igniting it. Be very careful not to touch the potassium with your bare hands.

[Guest vantoo]

jeeezz...you guys are begining to scare me....

[Guest Broomhead]

I also just found out that windshield washer fluid is flammable. Put some in half of a soda can, heat it with a lighter, sun, what-have-you, and then light it. Be careful, in daylight/shade it is a clear flame. You will see the surface ripple while its burning, and you can feel the heat above the can. Place a couple of 1/4" sticks over the can and you can dry out wet tinder and then it will ignite. Works pretty damn good too.

[Guest Broomhead]

jeeezz...you guys are begining to scare me....

I was a pyromaniac in my younger years. Hell, I still am, I'm just wiser and more careful about it now.

[UncleJak]

What kinda washer fluid you been using??

[Guest Broomhead]

What kinda washer fluid you been using??

Ultra cheapo from Target. It has Isopropyl Alcohol and I think another one also; makes it evaporate off the windshield faster.

[bigwakes]

You can use an old road bike intertube, cut the tube and slide it over your lighter. When you need a fire cut a piece of the rubber and light it with your lighter. It burns for a long time and saves your lighter fuel.

[Squeezle]

I like to practice with my flint, steel and charcloth and fire piston when I go camping. I have used an old fashioned pencil sharpener and stuck in fatwood pieces and put the shavings into plastic film canisters. For my soda can stove I use yellow heet from the auto parts store.

[Timestepper]

Wow! I've learned some things from this thread. I guess that's a good thing, although I'll readily admit that some of the ideas had me scratching my head and wondering how the folks that suggested them still had enough fingers left to type with. lmao

Having spent many years as a living historian, (doing the mountain man/buckskinning/frontier scout thing), I've learned quite a bit on how fires were started before there were matches. Some, like flint & steel, are fairly simple and can be mastered in short order. Others, like using a bow drill, take a bit more time and preparation. Having said that, you are limited only by your imagination and using a combination of "old fashioned" and "new age" techniques seems to be the key for me. The following are just a few things I've used to great advantage over a lifetime of time of primitive camping and modern mis-adventures. (I'm going to assume that you've already got a flame source, i.,e., matches, lighter, etc...)

Cotton balls soaked in vaseline and stored in a film canister.

Paper egg cartons filled with sawdust/pine shavings and saturated with wax (simply break off one at a time and light the wax soaked paper edge - it'll burn for about 10 minutes and light even damp wood).

Old film negatives light easily and put off tremendous heat as do most plastic cups (don't breath the fumes). Gasoline mixed with enough powered laundry detergent to make a gel (basically homemade napalm) and stored in a small charcoal lighter fluid bottle (just squeeze out a ribbon onto your kindling and touch a match or lighter to it). A small bundle of cedar bark dipped in paraffin or beeswax is great (this will light even when wet).

Hickory splinters dipped in paraffin or beeswax (not quite as good as cedar bark, but still throws a good hot flame). The so-called Tea-light candles are great fire starters and I generally carry a half dozen or so in a plastic bag (they don't take up much room) and just light one and place it under my tinder pyramid when I want a fire (candle stubs work great, too) good thing about tea-lights/candle stubs is that they can also be used for actual lighting purposes in a pinch.

I've also used tightly rolled "newspaper logs" dipped in/coated with wax.

A simple and very effective stove can be made using a tuna or cat food can and a 1 inch wide strip of corrugated cardboard rolled tightly and placed in the bottom of the can and saturated with wax (don't fill the can with wax, just saturate the cardboard) to extinguish, simply place the bottom of your cook pot, pan, etc... directly on top the can. When the flames are out, set it off to the side to cool down and let the remaining wax harden, then pack it away for the next time (this stove works best with a trivet of some sort to keep your pot above the flame).

I've also used homemade alcohol stoves and a few other methods (that I refuse to pass along for fear of getting sued). But the stuff mentioned above is tried and true and has been used to great effect on a reasonably regular basis. I'm sure there are other things that I'm simply not thinking of right now - like I mentioned earlier, you're limited only by your imagination - but the key is to practice all of it before you need it. Nothing sucks more than finding yourself in a situation where you are depending upon a method of fire starting that you're only vaguely familiar with or "read about once in a forum or a magazine or something."

[sbeck37923]

.50 APIT on a dry day...

[Caster]

Okay folks. Cool weather has officially decided to begin it's cycle this morning. We have central heat in the house, but we burn wood in the shop where I work. I start a fire every morning during winter months. Got me thinking. I've always used the most expedient method I can find; never cared just get it going. Not this year. I've decided to swear off lighters and begin each day pretending I have one match. Eventually I'm going to work with just a flint striker. What better time to practice and become proficient starting a fire the hard way, then when you're safely NOT in need of a fire?

I challenge all you wood burners who need (like me) or want to develop their skill level to go all winter this year, using your wood stove.....NO LIGHTERS, No matches even! I've wasted a lot of time over the years because for the first hour or two every morning, I have little or nothing expected from me. There's no rush to get the fire going. I'm going to get good at this if I have to set my head on fire call myself ghostrider.

[dickenscpa]

I never use a lighter to do our little fire at home or camp fires. I want to make sure I have my method down in case I need that skill. I have a magnesium bar and ferro rod lanyarded together. Part of my BUG bag is old prescription bottles with about 7-8 cotton balls apiece soaked in petroleum jelly. Bag of a bajillion cotton balls was $.97 and the generic jelly was $1.29. Makes a bunch.

Cotton ball takes a spark very easily and the jelly keeps it from disappearing in 2 seconds.

Brad

[Caster]

Something else that's a good thing to play with during "safe times". When you're starting a fire, let it almost die out and try to save it. Reason being, when you need it most, you will only have one dry match left, and prepare all you like, your fire will try to die out on you. A good skill to have is the ability to keep it alive.

Of course, if you ever used a fire piston or friction to start a fire from an ember, you already know this skill.

Also, I know it's been mentioned before, but you guys that burn wood in a stove should really learn to cook on it. Look at all that wasted heat. I know there's a few of us that'll use the wood stove to run a pot of chili or beans. I use mine to reheat leftovers, heat cans of soup still in the can, just open the can and stir:) Lots of possibilities.

Edited October 27, 2011 by Caster

[Guest Darthlaidher]

Don't know if this was said yet but you can take lint and put it in an cardboard egg shell take floss and tie the open end and then dip it in hot wax, once lit it will burn for a good 15 minutes. Lint alone is a good fire starting material.

after about 10 minutes of burning

[Guest wewalked]

I like to keep an old-school stainless steel hand pencil sharpener like the one below in my bag. Great to make tinder for small fires, to get a hobo stove going, etc. It would be helpful to have some dry wood with you but any stick that can fit can be shaved into tinder safely and with little effort.

[Timestepper]

I like to keep an old-school stainless steel hand pencil sharpener like the one below in my bag. Great to make tinder for small fires, to get a hobo stove going, etc. It would be helpful to have some dry wood with you but any stick that can fit can be shaved into tinder safely and with little effort.

Not to whiz in your Post Toasties - to each his own and the shavings you can make are indeed great tinder - but I prefer to carry a sharp knife. It can accomplish the same thing PLUS has multiple uses. Also, you're quite limited on what size stick can fit into a pencil sharpener. And, even though it is small and doesn't take up much room, the fact remains that if you carry enough items that don't take up much room and serve only ONE purpose, eventually they will take up a BUNCH of room.

As far as easily made tinder goes, I like to carry 10 or 15 feet or more of cheap sisal rope. First, you can never have too much cordage. Second, if you need tinder all you have to do is cut a six inch length of sisal, unravel it and form it into a "nest" which will readily ignite. (And I know whereof I speak having used sisal rope for just that purpose in the course of literally thousands of flint & steel fire making demonstrations.) A nest of cedar bark works even better than sisal rope of course, or at least as well, but sisal is cheap (one of the cheapest of all commercially produced, natural fiber cordages) readily available and has the extra benefit of serving both as cordage and tinder.

...TS...

[enfield]

Calcium carbide and water react to make acetylene gas.

Any old guy from WV knows this.

[Guest 270win]

I have used paper towels soaked in cooking oil. You also don't get the bad taste on your food by using cooking oil.

[subsonic]

Wax paper, Chapstick or similar, mylar packaged potato chips, steel wool and a 9v battery, anything aerosol.

[Guest Broomhead]

Not sure if its been mentioned, I may have posted it. A Sterno can, like for a buffet table tray (gelled methanol or ethanol), is small, cheap, and easy to use. Dip a stick in the gel, put it under your tender, and light it. Depending on how big of a gob you scooped out and whether you spread it around on the stick or not, it should burn long and hot enough to dry out moist/damp tinder and then light it when it is dried enough. I've started several fires in the outdoor fireplace at my last house using a Sterno can.

Another way is to use it for a quick warm up. The entire can will burn for +30 minutes. However, you can easily uncap it, light it, squat over it and warm your hands, face, etc. Replace the lid to extinguish the flame and wait for the it to cool some before handling it. Pack it back up and off you go. I wish I had a can on Black Friday waiting outside Target at midnight freezing my cojones off.

[Guest Curley78]

Carbide...I'm a WV guy and I know this. Fished many a night on Coal river with a carbide light. Howdy.

[Guest Curley78]

I will add 1 more to the pot. Sorry if this one has been covered already. If you have a 9 volt battery and a piece if fine steel wool, just lay the wool across the contacts of the battery. Fire..! So remember kids, that's why you NEVER store 9 volt batteries in a "junk" drawer especially that also contains steel wool. Merry Christmas to all from the middle, TN

[Guest Broomhead]

The entire can will burn for +30 minutes.

I was wrong. The Sterno can I have lasts 2.5hrs. Wally World has some in the camping department that will last 4.5hrs.