Actually hoping to get out in the mountains this weekend. Our weather up until about 10 days has been the worst in 60 years and the avalanche warnings are now finally slowing. This is encouraging as this is the longest we have gone without any visits to our fav outdoor places in years.....Cabin fever is sinking in and one of the reasons for the photos of the paint can stove and testing of fire starters the last few days.

If we get out, I will do some testing and post the results.

A little video of the Halfords Rubber Solution ignition test can be viewed here at

http://www.amfearliathmor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/firestarter.wmv 3.8 Mbyte file.

The core out of magic markers (permanent, black) burns real nice too. Nice hot blue flame.
I just found that out, but highlighters would not light for me.

Ever since yesterday I have been trying to burn all sorts of stuff like some seriously disturbed pyromaniac kid.

I would expect some of those things to need a wick. You need to turn the solid into a liquid and then the liquid into gas; the gas is what burns, hopefully producing enough heat to melt the solid and keep it self-sustaining.

Sometimes a used match will serve as a wick.

Just because something doesn't light with a match doesn't mean it is not a great fire starter / accelerant. You can put out a cigarette in Gasoline. Try dumping some diesel on the ground and lighting it, try it with kerosene, or wax . . . It won't light but it certainly does "burn" under the right circumstances.

Now like "Brangdon" said, some of these need a wick. Just to prove this true, take a cotton ball and light it. Time how long it takes to burn. Now saturate it with PJ and burn it. It will burn WAY longer.

Cotton Balls will also light after they've been wet but much depends on how they've be saturated and then after they've been wet they need to be torn and then fluffed.

I like the experiments, it's lots of fun and you learn a lot.

I carry a carmex. one time as a test, I had it burning for 20 minutes: see below for my 2006 post:

Everyone here is familiar with the cotton ball / vaseline fire starter, I assume. You know it will catch sparks when torn open, and give some good flame for around 5 minutes. Recently, an idea came to me while I applied some Carmex to my lips. this little canister of lip balm in my pocket suddenly set off a light bulb in my head. I headed for the fire place to experiment after first grabbing my pocket knive, firesteel and a cotton ball. first, I opened the carmex, then with the screw driver on my knife stuffed the cotton ball down to the bottom of the canister right into the lip balm. of course, this displaced some of the lip balm, which I just slathered on the side of the remains of the cotton ball, leaving some cotton exposed to fray and catch sparks. ignition was simple with firesteel (or match/lighter). what happened next was a slow startup, I almost thought it was going to burn out. maybe a different installation of the cotton wick would help, but I've only tried once so far. anyway, it started to pickup in intensity, until after a minute or so was 4" tall. THIS CONTINUED FOR 20+ MINUTES! Better performance than I've seen for any firestarter, bar none and yet much smaller. the entire container also melted down to nothing, as well as it's contents (although it held it's general form as it burned down). This was so cool, I thought. I carry this stuff anyway. I'd be interested in any tests others run with blistex and other brands, as well as approaches to the "wick". try it, you'll have some fun!

sounds like we'd have some fun if you were my neighbor

you need to get a fire place.

Update:

We went on an overnight hike and got home earlier this am as we have other commitments today. While out yesterday we had a chance to do some testing and experimenting without fear of the local Fire Department rolling their trucks.

Unfortunately there are no photos as the camera did not take well to an earlier adventure where I was putting it on the tripod. The camera decided to leap off the tripod and tumble down a 20' or so embankment....Now that we are home, the camera was fortunately easy to repair with the right tools. I will post a few photos of the hiking area that we managed to take before the camera decided that it was time to take a leap.
We may be going out again for a day hike next weekend and I will see if we have time to do some quick re-tests so that I can take some photos

In furthing the tests I did a few days ago, yesterday we spent about 1-1/2 hours in total trying different methods with the same products.
The ambient temperature was sunny and clear with temps of 4 - 6 C (38 - 40 F) and 87% humidity. The wood used was a mix of dry to medium wet pine, poplar and spruce.

In these tests, all the products were either slathered on the wood tinder or mixed directly in the tinder. The results were pretty much as expected and did not yield any suprises.

Here are the results of the products previously tested.

Neopsorin Cream:
This cream was both mixed into tinder or smeared directly on. We did not see any appreciable or usefulness of this. In fact, it appeared to hinder the fire more then anything as it acted as a barrier to the flame.
Conclusion: Not worth the effort.

Hand Sanitizer
As in the original test, this product was by far the best. The hand sanitizer is gelled and it does not take very much of it to slather onto some small pieces of tinder and light it up. In no time flat, the fire was blazing and it was also relatively easy to re-light after being doused with water. That being said, the amount of unburned gell remaining on the wood will decide how easy it would to re-light.
Conclusion: If you are going to carry a liquid type of fire starting accelerant, this is the product you want to carry. The small bottle which we carry, will in all probability and if used judiously will last for enough fires until you are back to safety or rescued.

Vaseline:
We tested this with a couple of different methods. First up was lighting cotton t-shirt material which we know burns ok. Again it was very noticable that the cotton material burns and the vaseline mostly melts away. While it was burning, we added wood to the flame and it eventually caught and did burn slightly longer and with more flame. Next method was to smear vaseline directly onto one end of a fuzzed twig about 14 inches long and 3/8 in diameter. I lit up one end of the wood with no vaseline on it and let the fire burn to the other end. Once it caught, again the wood burned and longer. Lastly, smearing vaseline directly onto several different sized pieces of wood then throwing these pieces directly onto an existing fire resulted in longer burning and fire.
Conclusion: I am not convinced that vaseline is the best accelerant to use. For all it's discussion on this forum and others, this is one method that I would not want to use...there are much better (and less messy/greasy) alternatives out there.

Aftershave:
Although it is not gelled, the aftershave being poured onto wood and lit, burns much like the hand sanitizer on. It did not readily survive being doused with water and re-lit (4 matches later). Although it burns very good, the smell is horrible and will help the meaneast, hungriest bear miles away from your camp.
Conclusion: How may people carry aftershave in their backpack or EDC? For those who travel for work and keep a shaving bag in the car, the afteshave may come in handy if you ever breakdown in the middle of nowwhere and need a fire for warmth, food cooking etc.

Candle:
As in the previous test at home, the candle performed almost flawlessy. It was easy to light intially and after being doused with water.
Conclusion: the candle is as basic as it gets. We always carry 2-3 small stubs in the backpack and though we rarely have had to use them, they have never failed us.

Chapstick:
The chapstick was a mixed bag of results. First we took a half tube of it and cut into small pieces and added to a very small fire. Although the fire perked up a bit, it was not what you would call a sucess. Next we warmed up some chapstick our hands the smeared onto some wood and lit the wood. Again there was no real big difference in the burn rate or time. Finally, smearing some more wood with the last of the chapstick then throwing this into an already burning fire made a noticeable difference but not a whole lot....That being said, the difference may be enough when you really need it.
Conclusion: Most people carry chapstick and while it is not the best out there, as I alluded to above, it may help when you really need it. The one major drawback is that the tubes of chapstick do not hold a lot. If you start with only 1/2 a tube then you need to get the fire started on the first or 2nd attempt.

Lip Balm.
This will not catch and burn on its own, however it worked ok when it is smeared onto very dry tinder then lit on fire. The balm burned longer and with more flames then the wood probably would of. Tossing small dabs directly onto the fire resulted in very small and brief spurts of flame intensity.
Conclusion: I don't like chapstick for my lips but I do like lip balm, hence it is in my EDC and our hiking backpacks. Although it was not the best accelerant, a small container lasts much longer then the chapstick does which in turn, increases the odds of successfully lighting a fire.

Egg Carton and Candle Wax Tinder
(see the posts I made a couple of days ago on making these)
As I demonstrated in my previous posts, these burn great and will make the differene in having a fire and not having a fire. These can also survive a good dunk of water and still re-light. In the field testing yesterday (and in actual use in past outings over the years), the results in using this method as an accelerant is flawless.
Conclusion:
The combination of the cardboard, wood shavings/sawdust, candle wax and embedded match heads make for an idea fire accelerant under the worst weather and enviromental conditions. I have only carried these and candles over the years and they have and will remain my choice of tinnder/ accelerants to use.

PolySporin Ointment:
No testing as we forgot it at home...


Summary:
I decided to test these many of the above methods as over the years, I have read many discussions on their abilities without hearing or seeing any actual testing out in the field.

All the above products / methods will burn under idea under controlled and idea conditions. Out in the field, these conditions are not perfect and with some of the above methods, I would not waste my time on or depend on being my fire accelerant savior....but thats just my opinion.

Your thoughts, experience and and results may be far different then the above.

Holy cow, this is true! I was looking for something more carry-friendly than Vaseline. I tried out Burt's Bee's. I carry Burt's Bees anyway. So, I'm getting at least 2-for-1. It's not as messy as Vaseline and doesn't seem to liquefy until it's burning. In contrast, Vaseline tends to run, thereby wasting fuel if you don't have a holder. I still like the Vaseline though because the bucket is so inexpensive.