Fire Fridays...

Jayclimber

Well-known member
Moderator
#3
Its not Friday but I made an attempt at a fire with dried grass formed into a birds nest filled with shavings and char cloth as the fire source...

Materials laid out ready to go...
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Birds nest put together and ready to go...
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Char cloth took a quick spark from a ferro rod...
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After a little air and praying...
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Poof we have fire... I was shocked at how fast it went up. The char cloth was a batch we made last year. I'm going to use this a lot more for showing my scouts!

This was fun...
 

disturbed1970

Well-known member
Brass Subscriber
#4
I'm a huge fan of cotton balls soaked in vaseline. You can keep a crazy number of them in a ziploc baggie, and I have never not been able to start a properly prepped fire with one. They catch immediately off the firesteel, and they burn for a decent amount of time. They're kinda messy to prepare, but you can get a ton of fires out of one jar of vaseline and a bag of cotton balls.
 

Jayclimber

Well-known member
Moderator
#5
I'm a huge fan of cotton balls soaked in vaseline. You can keep a crazy number of them in a ziploc baggie, and I have never not been able to start a properly prepped fire with one. They catch immediately off the firesteel, and they burn for a decent amount of time. They're kinda messy to prepare, but you can get a ton of fires out of one jar of vaseline and a bag of cotton balls.
Heck yes!

My go to is cotton balls soaked in nail polish remover (being married and having a daughter it is in no short supply, lol) but the same effect, one spark and done! I keep them in empty pill bottles and pluck one out as needed!
 

Josh

We could edit this?!
#6
I actually have a tub of Vaseline on my kitchen table that I got to replace my old tub that ran out specifically because I needed more cotton balls soaked in it for fire starting reasons.

That and dryer lint are my big go to fire starting materials. Ironically the whole reason I needed the cotton balls was for a planned outing tomorrow where I was going to be making char cloth for the first time to see how I liked it. I’m interested to see if it lives up to all the hype.
 

O:gweh

Domari Nolo
Forum Merchant
#7
In my experience, char works great....for what it is. It doesn't hold a candle to the Vaseline cotton balls though. If it gets wet its done for and you still need some sort of fine tinder ball to go with it.

Water doesn't affect the cotton balls and you can go right from cotton to shaved wood etc without the need for a fine tinder bundle.

Several years ago over at SB we discussed this topic and a Canadian was looking for something simpler than cotton soaked Vaseline. His concern was than in sub zero temperatures he had to take his gloves off to fluff up the cotton balls. He preferred cotton balls soaked in old candle wax. I have tried them also and they work great but take up way more space that the Vaseline ones. But for the conditions he discussed they are superior in that way.
 

Mattsn

Well-known member
Brass Subscriber
#9
I'm a huge fan of cotton balls soaked in vaseline. You can keep a crazy number of them in a ziploc baggie, and I have never not been able to start a properly prepped fire with one. They catch immediately off the firesteel, and they burn for a decent amount of time. They're kinda messy to prepare, but you can get a ton of fires out of one jar of vaseline and a bag of cotton balls.
I use cotton balls soaked in vasoline aswell. To keep the mess down. Put the cotton balls and the vasoline together in the zip lock bag. Kneed the vasoline into All the cotton while in the bag together. Kepps your hands clean that way.
 
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Bacash

Just a guy
Brass Subscriber
#13

GOBLIN X

PUKUTSI
Brass Subscriber
#14
My favorite new piece of fire making kit is this little collapsible blow tube. I have used it extensively over the last 6 months and love it. I took it up the mountain in Colorado and I use it to rekindle my wood stove if there is a little bit of embers left.

https://www.amazon.com/POCKET-BELLO...keywords=fire+blow+tube&qid=1573392919&sr=8-7
crap i have some of those and didnt know it. telescoping magnets that i have lost the magnet out of , all i gotta do is knock the ends out! thankya!