Yes, Fritos are fantastic for building fires. I learned that from a hiker who saw it on a survival TV show.Originally Posted by Grinder
Different stroke's for different feathers, its hard to get a doubtful owl out of shape.
Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.
Woo
i consider fire to be my #3 survival priority. (after shelter and water). consequently, i carry a bunch of crap... 2 bics, matches, and flint rod. i carry esbit and alcohol for fuel, i also carry charcloth and cotton balls soaked in vaseline for firestarters. i guess hand sanitizer counts too, cause that's always in my pack.
Vaseline impregnated cotton balls and a Light My Fire firesteel.
Yea you can guess what happened when I read your post. I grabbed cotton balls and "Fresh" vaseline and my best carbon steel knife and M bar. The shower of sparks FAILED to catch the soaked cotton balls. I used the method where the knife is held close and stationary and the M bar is pulled quickly away - this puts the sparks right on the ball.
about 15 trys... it was very lame on my part.
Maybe you could tell me what I am doing wrong.
Last edited by Wise Old Owl; 05-29-2010 at 00:26. Reason: english sentence run on.
Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.
Woo
Some recent hand sanitizers are so cheap they do not contain alcohol so they won't light.... I suggest you test it.
Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.
Woo
I try to leave some of the fibers free of vaseline. This leaves fibers that easily catch a spark, but quickly brings a flame to the part of the cotton ball that's impregnated with vaseline and will burn for a long time because of it. Anyway, what I'd like to do it use a tube of vaseline to soak a part of the cotton ball when I'm ready to use it because putting vaseline on the cotton ball at home just results in a cotton ball that's completely covered in vaseline...not good.
Wood works pretty well ... just shave a little off, get some small pieces together and put it all in a pile all tee pee like ... hold a flame to it... wood is fairly common in most places where building a fire is possible to begin with...
Seriously though, hand sanitizer and some dryer lint works well. Back in the day we used small rolls of newspaper strips and coated them with wax, this worked well too. To make them we'd roll a bit of paper and tie some string around it, then dip it into hot wax. A bit involved though, good when you are preparing a bunch of them for say a scout troop/den.
it is strange that a man would put the pieces together as they please opposed to being content with where the pieces fall
I hate most of these firestarters though because they require additional things to be carried. Right now there's lots of fresh grass growing, and some of it has flowers that catch a spark very easily.
No idea. I don't have any trouble with it myself.
Phreak does a pretty good job starting fires; and I don't have to carry him
The trail was here before we arrived, and it will still be here when we are gone...enjoy it now, and preserve it for others that come after us
I have rarely used anything other than birch bark from downed limbs and dead spruce and fir twigs from the bottom branches of otherwise mostly live trees.
I learned this from another hiker,she knows who she is. But buy the egg cartons made from recycled paper. When finished with the eggs, (yes you can throw the shells out into the yard or the woods, animals use them for their needed calcium). Fill each of the egg slots with dryer lint (we all have plenty of it). I like to put a dab of vaseline on the top and bottom before stuffing the dryer lint into the egg slots. Then melt used candles and cover the lint enough to hold it all in there. Cut the egg slots apart. Take one in a ziploc for each fire you think you will want to build. I usually carry one or two extra, just in case. Works great for me.
Used one of those this past weekend. They burn an extraordinarily long time and it's all stuff that would get thrown away otherwise.
Skids
Insanity: Asking about inseams over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
Yeah, smart girl that told me that, although I wouldn't want her to get the big head or anything.
finest kind. i take it birch is readily available thru maine? how about south of PA?
OK, I'm gonna try this out ASAP. Sounds like a great idea.
That's my dog, Echo. He's a fine young dog.
these are awesome...
http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...ductId=3164045
Wise Old Owl,
The technique sounds likely to produce results, especially the one you pull it away. I have heard the scraper steel needs a good 90-degree right angle edge on it for the most sparks. It is also necessary to scrape the outer coating off on the point you are scraping.
I like piezo sparkers. No good at altitude, I understand. That is why I have a BIC "electronic" lighter for backup, but maybe whatever makes it "electronic" is a piezo. I really like the lighters with an adjustable length of flame. My favorite fire starter is the long reach piezo starter for campstoves for car camping. I have and use REI storm matches. The piezo, however, is first choice, and if I must, I use a firesteel and scraper.
I was at the website, only yesterday, looking for a firesteel that will throw "gobs of fire". Do you think?
I saw my first birch tree as the trail passed from Georgia into North Carolina. I never was again without birch park all the way to Katahdin.
Birches like the sun. As the evergreens grow up around them they start to die, providing birch bark for hikers for years thereafter. Birches will gradually become extinct in most places along the trail now that harvesting of trees and wild fires in the trail corridor have been mostly eliminated.
But the fire starting properties of the bark lasts for decades after the tree dies.
Weary
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