Ok, I admit it. As a maker of fire, I suck.

Practicing my survival skills in the comfort of my home as a good little preparedness-er, I decided to see if I could get an ember "borrowed" from the fireplace to ignite a cotton ball (both with and without Vaseline).

Both smoked and smoldered like the dickens and charred as I cupped it and blew on it just like I've watched Les do on Survivorman.

What am I doing wrong?

I can get the Vaseline cotton ball (VCB) to catch fairly easily with my fire steel, but if I'm going to try this with an ember produced by a fire-bow or similar, I'm in for a cold wet night.

The cotton ball of course ignited and burned up almost instantly when tossed frustratedly into the fire itself so that shoots the "fire retardant" theory.

Small fire needs small tinder. Make sure you fluff up that cotton ball before adding fire to it, with or without Vaseline. Practice. . .

Too tightly packed?
Too much vaseline?
Too much air and you were blowing it out?

And the real kicker- was it a cotton ball, or a white polyester fluff ball?

Thanks for the feedback from both.

I was wondering if I hadn't fluffed them up enough or maybe didn't have real cotton.

I went back and double checked and the bag said "100% cotton" so that eliminated that possibility.

I had made several (about 6) attempts both plain and with just a little Vaseline (didn't want to overwhelm and smother the little ember).

Had it fluffed up enough that it actually burned it's way through the fluff ball a couple of times as I was blowing on it.

Funny thing is now when I go to work tomorrow my thumb/index and 2nd fingertips are now yellowed as if I had been smoking a joint. (I work on a med-psych unit where we do a lot of detox). I'm sure I'm going to get some funny looks from my eagle-eyed coworkers.

Once I tell them where the yellow stains came from, they will have an easier time believing that I was trying to start a fire with cotton balls than smoking a joint...

I was trying to do it with as small an ember as I could manage because in the field I suspect that is all I'm going to be lucky enough to get. I did try with a large (1/4 inch long) ember just to see if size does matter. (It didn't).

Practice, practice, practice....

Another possibility with an ember is that you might have it too open. It might not be able to get "critical mass", it isn't dense enough for the fire to become self sustaining. *shrugs*

Yeah, each time it looked like it was just about to catch (smoking like a fiend and even the cotton fibers glowing red) but it just couldn't make over the edge and ignite.

I'll keep playing with it with different materials until I get it, then I'll move on to learn how to make an ember with a bow-drill.

My experience with cotton balls and flint and steel is, they suck at turning an ember into a flame. They'll light but they're much more miss then hit. What I found to be a far superior material is jute twine. The cheap brown stuff that doesn't make particularly good cordage. A short piece, unraveled and bunched up catches with barely any work at all. Don't know why cotton has such a hard time igniting. I suspect the fibers are too fine, but that's not even a hypothesis.

This is a great post and I hope more people get involved in the answers. I am often in my backyard trying to catch tinder of all types on fire. The cotton ball one has vexed me before as well and not one I would prefer to have as my only option.

At what temperature does vaseline catch fire? Maybe you need a hotter fire source?

Perhaps I misunderstood the scenario. I thought the challenge was using a vaseline-soaked cottonball with a small ember like you would create with a hand-drill or bow-drill friction fire survival technique.

Don't feel bad samhain, I suck at fire making as well. I have been learning as I go and I have switched most of my fire steel over to Ultimate Survival Technologies steel. What ever they use as there mix to make there firesteel works well with me. I have light my fire steel as well as others but the UST steel has performed the best for me. I guess it's more idiot proof but I can make fires the first time with there steels on a lot more things than I could with other steels (least path or resistance for me). I bought 2 blast matches and I already own a STRIKEFORCE which I had for ages, and one day I was cleaning out some old boxes and found my old STRIKEFORCE and had forgot about the WETFIRE in the handle. It was raining out that day so I said what the heck it had been in the handle for probably 15 years or so and I don't remember them being UST at the time but on a wet driveway and still raining that thing took one spark and lit right up and burned for several long minutes and I was throwing wet sticks to see if it would dry them and catch on fire (which it did). I had been carrying the cotton balls and PJ but in liu of some of the experiments I've been playing with, I cut up my old STRIKEFORCE to get the steel out and used it's old striker to hang off the keychain.

The WETFIRE tender I believe is definitively the way to go for energency tender because you can crush it up in powder and put it in a smaller container than cotton balls and it works wet or dry vs keeping cotton balls dry plus for the price and emergency use you can't beat it. After 15 years it took one spark in a wet environment and i had fire for minutes. I'm sold, I try to set everything up to be as easiest as possible for emergencies just in case I have other needs to worry about(broken legs or arms or hypothermia)and I need a fire now and not to fool around with failed or wet gear.

Sorry as usual for the rant, just speed read the highlights.

Base Gear has a sale on UST products right now anyway.(Ends 12/12/08)

Ultimate Survival Wet Fire Tinder (8 pk)
http://www.basegear.com/wetfiretinder.html
$5.95

Ultimate Survival Blast Match
http://www.basegear.com/blastmatch.html
$17.95

If I recall correctly, I have gotten flame with the cotton ball using a coal. Generally though I prefer to make a light and airy nest for the coal. You could always add the cotton ball to the nest. I carry some jute cord in my wallet along with a small flat square of cotton. The fluffed up jute makes a great nest for the coal you get from friction as well as flint and steel.

Does someone know how to get the Material Safety Data Sheet [msds] for vaseline or petroleum jelly? I think the MSDS probably lists the ignition temperature and other interesting info.

http://www2.hazard.com/msds/f2/bjv/bjvyv.html

If I am reading this correctly, the ignition temperature is 400 degrees Farenheit. Now, what is the temperature of various embers?

For that, I might even suggest two cotton balls- one with vaseline, and one without to catch the first bit of heat. I've found that it is often easier to catch dry cotton than jellied.

After reading on here and other places, I ended up choosing the Wetfire tinder as what I carry as well.

Waterproof, not messy, light, individually packaged, breaks easily into smaller bits, easy to ignite, burns pretty long.

Basically I wanted a waterproof, foolproof option. Typically I carry the tinder, waterproof matches, a Scout Swedish firesteel, and often a lighter as well.

My tests with the Scout firesteel suggest is is easy to light. I like.

-john


Firemaking section of my EDC kit [fulls sized]

Believe it or not, horse hair works really wheel, better than cotton balls. Besides my more "modern" devices, like ferro rods, I still have an old hunk of flint wrapped in a bag with horse hair that I have successfully started fires with.

I like that idea of the length of jute in the wallet. I can put a lot more of that in my fire pouch than cotton balls.

I may play with jute and Vaseline (not in my wallet of course) just to see what the burn times look like.

May go ahead and invest in some of the wetfire tinder as well.

Getting a lot of good ideas from this thread. Cool!!

Cotton balls soaked in Coleman white gas works pretty well - you don't even have to blow on them to get them to ignite with a coal as a single spark will normally get them going. Best to keep these white gas soaked cotton balls kept stored in an airtight re-used metal shoe polish tin though. Using this method of firelighting is useful in snowy, cold and wet conditions especailly in conjunction with a fire log.

Other useful tinders are;

high loft down from a sleeping bag or jacket.

birchbark which has been fuzzed up using a knife.

tinder Fungus or horses hoof fungus again fuzzed up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaHNWaBmNJU

Charcloth. etc...



Ray Mears shows how to prepare a fire log. Use 1 cotton ball soaked in white gas instead of a match..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V4l5St4MyA

The Ray Mears fire log is interesting.

I kept wondering how you put it out so you can safely move on.

I took a bunch of jute, wrapped it around my hand about 10 times, and tied it off, like a bunch of rope. Then I cut the 2 "loops". I then heated a bunch of canning wax from the grocery store in a tomato soup can over an Optimus stove - outdoors, in my driveway (don't have a double boiler). Stuffed the jute into the melted wax, let it soak for a minute or two, then pulled it out, let it cool on wax paper for about 10 min, then repeated it. Now I have a big 'ol jute candle.

To light with a firesteel, pound some of the jute between 2 rocks, it flays open and catches great.

I used some fatwood sticks as tweezers to pull the jute out of the can, now I have a couple of big fatwood candles.

The possibilities are endless.

You can improvise a double boiler with some glass marbles. Just put an inch or so of water in a larger sized kitchen pot, drop some marbles in it, and set your wax can on top of the marbles.

But it still needs constant attention for safety reasons.

Sue

You can also use a stainless steel mixing bowl set on top of a pan of boiling water as a double boiler. Works better then most commercial double boilers.