OK guys and gals. We can grow them, we can cut them, we can split them, and then we need to burn them.
What is your favorite firestarter product, and why?
I want to stike a match, walk away, and come back to a real nice fire! Every time there would be a real ... nice ... fire.
Thanks!
Martin
What: Cedar Kindling
Why: <font color="blue"> stike a match, walk away, and come back to a real nice fire! Every time there would be a real ... nice ... fire.
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Is this for dry stored kindling or out in the woods for a campsite after a three day rain?
Egon
[img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] Egon, stored in an inside wood box. I don't think this question has a good answer for the 3 day rain case. I have carried kindling on hunting trips (rather the horses did).
If stored inside hand plane shavings of pine overlain by some dry pine sticks should work well.
After the three day rain find a big pine or spruce and use the dead dry llittle lower stubs.
If you find someone who can start a fire in the woods after a three day rain make sure he is treated well.
Egon
Egon
<font color="blue"> If you find someone who can start a fire in the woods after a three day rain make sure he is treated well.
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Too funny Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Egon, I want some more respect! I have been pretty darned good at starting fires out in the woods (even after rain and snow.) I confess that over the years I became less of a purist and layed asside my bow drill and such. I have used some or all of the following: candle (for a small starter flame and shavings as an accelerater) magnesium block to make shavings for a quick hot start, and I carry a small chain saw with me when packing in the woods. No, RELAX, not a gas engine saw but a small length of chainsaw chain with leaders at both ends and split rings into which you put sticks for handles. It all rolls up (not the throw away handles) neatly and fits in a screw top tin a bit smaller than a modern day snuff container that you hardly notice in a shirt pocket.
This saw allows cuting a dead limb of sufficient diameter to contain DRY FAT WOOD which is terrific for fire starting. I quit backpacking hatchets decades ago. I can't wean myself from my trusty mid size Buck sheath knife which can help with preparing fat wood for kindling. Pine cones contain fair quantities of rosin which will make a decent accelerator to get a starter fire going hot enougn to ignite damp "squaw wood."
In the fire starting challenge with materials available after three days of rain, I can do OK if there is no requirement for a large fire fast AND smokeless. My methods can be moderately quick but sure aren't smokeless, especially when you are trying to get the bigger wetter stuff going. I confess the hardest fire starting I have ever done is IN THE RAIN.
Now back to the fireplace: I had a small cast iron tray about 10 inches long by 4 inches wide by an inch deep. It had a removeble insert of porous ceramic material. You pour your accelerating liquid (not gasoline) into the tray with insert in it. Kerosene, charcoal lighter, or similar works OK, diesel is an acquired taste not for everyone for indoor fires. You place this on the floor of the F/P under the kindling which is under the fire wood. stick a small twig or piece of paper, wetted with fire starting liquid partially across the fire starting accessory with some hanging over the edge. Light the part hanging over the edge. I used to have a butane lighter made for lighting fireplaces. It was nearly 2 ft long and prevented any flame based depilatory action on my arms and eyebrows when lighting fire starting liquids not on the approved list.
Anyway, by the time all the fuel is burned in the starter accessory, your kindling should have burned and the accessory helps start the logs as well. Not strictly traditional but highly effective. The accessory works much better than a sardine can of sharcoal lighter as the ceramic adsorbs the liquid and "meters" it out over a longer time in a more controlled fashion.
For my last real wood burning fireplace, I installed a natural gas fire starter burner. Turn on the gas valve, flick my super long Bic, and voila F I R E !! when the big logs caught, I turned off the gas. Natural gas or propane make great kindling.
More recently I have decided to fake it with propane gas logs in 4 rooms of the new house and restrict "PLAYING" with real fire to the back yard patio or camping trips.
[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
I'll tell you our secret, but don't tell anyone alse...
Take an old paper/cardboard egg container from that dozen eggs you bought. Cut the top off. Take old candles, and melt them. Fill each spot in the egg contained about 1/2-3/4 full. Let eh wax cool. Set it over by the woodstove or fireplace.
When you want to start a fire, break off one of the wax filled egg thingy's; there should be 12 to start. Set it in the stove, and arrange kindling over it. Light a corner of it, and you will have a nice fire shortly.
It works even better if you put wood shavings or sawdust, like from the table saw, in the wax.
take a tuna can or something similar, cut strips of cardboard the height of the inside of the can, roll them tightly into a roll and put in can and fill with parrafin. when needed just light the cardboard, soon you have a candle the size of the top of the tin. when the use of it is over just let it cool for the next time. I used C ration cans this way to heat meals in the field.
Twenty years ago or so we went fishing up in Cananda, walked a mile back to a lake where there was a boat and an outboard, started raining and we got soaked. No dry wood and only matches to start a fire. Peeled some bark off a birch tree, it was really good at getting the wet wood started. Of course if everyone did this, all the birch trees in Canada would be naked by now. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
By the way, best fishing I have ever had.
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