Stepping out of the armchair warrior mode, I tried to expand my fire making skills this weekend. I made some char cloth out of some old [cotton] denim jeans - I was expecting it to be quite fragile, but it actually held together quite well.
The problem was I couldn't get it to light. I tried the spark from a Sparklite, a Bic lighter, a Zippo, ferocerium (sp?) sparker, from a soft nail and chert/flint - nothing. I finally lit a 1" square with the Bic and was successful lighting a tinder bundle with just the char cloth ember (the experiment wasn't a total loss).
I had large sparks landing directly on the char cloth from most of the sources; I'm not sure why it didn't take. I even tried shredding/fluffing the char cloth to take the sparks.
Any suggestions? Is denim just to thick to use?
Tim