Hi Dave.

In my experience, the cotton balls should have as much vaseline as possible squeezed back out of them, you want them saturated, not soaked. When I prepare a fresh batch, I soak one, then put a dry one on top, soak another, then another dry one, etc. untill I have a medicine bottle about 3/4 full then fill it the rest of the way with dry cotton balls. When the bottle is full, I compress the cotton/vas. mix as much as possible, If I'm getting vaseline oozing out the top, I add more dry cotton, if the top cotton ball is dry, I add a dab of vaseline. It's not an exact science, but a little experimentation should get you there.

As for how far away to hold the flint/striker, I put it right down in contact with the tinder, Works every time for me. If you're using a lighter for your source of spark, again, get as close to the tinder as possible.

Fluffing the cotton ball shouldn't be much of a problem if you get the right cotton/vaseline mix, but as you've already found out, if you've got too much vaseline, you just get a sticky mess. I'd like to point out that in my experience, somewhat less than a full cotton ball is needed to get a fire going if you've got half-way decent DRY kindling (1/4 to 1/3 or less).

You might get other advice on this, but this is what has worked (to start hundreds of fires) for me (I believe in practice makes perfect). Try what I've suggested and let me know how it works for you.

As for the magnesium shavings, I wouldn't go this route unless I couldn't get a fire going without it (wet tinder, no tinder). If you need to resort to the Mag. bar, it will take a while to get enough shavings to have success. I try to get a pile about the size and thickness if a nickel (or bigger) together before I even think of striking a spark. The size/shape of the shavings doesnt really matter, as long as they're small enough (yours sounded just fine) but you HAVE to have ENOUGH. I keep a piece of notebook paper folded around my bar to lay out to catch the shavings on, then pour them where they need to go. After a lot of experimentation with not having enough shavings and not being able to keep them in a nice little pile, this is what I have come up with that works for me. ONE WORD OF CAUTION, that nickel sized pile of shavings WILL burn through a metal ash tray and ignite anything combustible that it's in contact with (trust me on this, I almost burnt the house down, ashtray, table top, and straight through to my leg under the table). It's time consuming getting the shavings off the bar, but it makes neat fireworks for a few seconds. Also, on this, I've found that a hacksaw blade works much better than a knife blade for getting the most shavings with the least sweat.

Hope this helps, let me know.

Troy

Dave - too much vasoline. Try this: Fluff up a DRY cotton ball (no goop) and hit it with the sparks (put the blade edge where you want the sparks and pull the rod away - it is easier after a little practice). You may "get it" on the first try or the 50th try, but once you "get it", try it again right away until you can reliably ignite a plain cotton ball (all fluffed up) most of the time on the first or second try - it comes fast after a few successes.

The vasoline merely extends the burn time - and perhaps it lends some water resistance. If the vasoline is melted to a clear liquid, soak a ball and squeeze it as "dry" as you can with your fingers - really hard. Be careful, as that is about the max temp I can tolerate without scalding myself - YMMV. There should be a compacted blob of cotton ball with little or no excess vasoline left. Just fluff one of those up and spark it - the extension on the burn time is impressive and they are no harder to light.

BTW, I use a double boiler - a soup can in a sauce pan of water works, as does the original container - because I KNOW the hottest the melted vasoline can be is the local BP of water - you could get a higher (finger-frying) temp in the microwave, I suspect. As soon as the vasoline melts clear, I take it off the stove and use it.

Or you can take a dab about the size of a pea and work it completely into a cotton ball - it's a fair bit more work and to do it well you have to tear apart the cotton ball to get it impregnated all the way thru, but that works as well. If you've got perceptable bits of vasoline afterwards, it was too much - you're after a greasy cotton ball, not a blob of grease reinforced with cotton.

HTH,

Tom

Hi Dave!

Sorry , i've been insanely busy at work and havent been able to post for a while.

As far as how close to get with the striker/bar:

as close as possible, an inch or 2 at most... Anything farther and the sparks will peter out. You want the max sparks to shower the tinder on each stroke. With the Strike Force you can sit cross-legged and place the flint rod the edge of your boot/shoe for stability, or use a "one knee" kneeled stance ( like you are proposing marriage to a gal ) and use the tip of your boot/shoe as a sort of stability platform to place the flint rod on, angle it downward, as close to the tinder as possible and "scrape" sparks onto the tinder.

Don't just rely on one stroke to ignite the tinder. Scrape the flint bar rapidly 3 times as close to the tinder as possible, and although it may not be needed, be prepared to blow on the tinder to make a flame.

Tinderly speaking... I did the same thing with my first batch of VCB's ( vasiline cotton balls ) even though I had thoroughly searched all the threads about these little beauties.. None of them would light easily as they were pretty saturated. Granted, with a lighter they lit up like fireworks and burned for a few minutes.

So, I made a new batch of VCB's. This time lightly dipping each ball in the vaseline then placing it into a gallon bag. When the specified number were in the bag ( 50 in this case) , I squeezed all the air out of it and microwaved it for 2 minutes on High.. I took the bag out of the microwave and after opening the bag used a rolling pin to squeeze out the excess vaseline. After this I transferred all the balls to a fresh bag and forcefully rolled it again. When I pulled the matted balls out of the bag they felt almost shockingly dry. However, when "fluffed" first with fingers, and then a pair of tweezers ( try to make it look like an afro/dreadlocks ) they all caught fire easily with "close sparks".

A hacksaw blade used on the non serated side is a great "blade" to produce sparks on any flint rod, in fact the best IMHO. ( and far better than using your knife blade to do it. )The blade in the strike force cap is good right out of the box, as long as you use the 90 degree edge and dig in a bit.. Touching it up on a grinder, or sharpening stone makes it even better.

Although I've used magnesium fire staters in the past, I'm definately no expert on them. They worked, but burnt out far to quickly for my taste. I switched to trioxane shavings, or other " burn in the rain" material...

Practice is the key..

Matt

I agree that you're probably holding the striker too far away. I've noticed this is commonaly a problem with cadets (not to be sexist, but girls seem to have more of a problem with it than boys). The problem there seems to be that they have an unreasonable fear of fire; they seem to think the tinder is going to explode into a fireball and burn their fingers off. Once they realise that the fire is not going to catch so quickly and so strongly as to cause even mild burns, they get up the courage to hold the flint down right on top of the tinder.

I've found my BlastMatch will pretty much ignite a cotton ball straight out of the bag, with no fluffing up necessary, but for other sparkers, especially my "home-made" ones, it's important to have the cotton wool really wispy - you should be able to see through it if you hold it up.

As for the mag-flint, you do need some sort of container so you can collect them into a pile. Just a loose pile about the size of a quarter is good (one poster here said a nickel, it's probably about the same size by eyeballing it). I've tried it a couple of times, I didn't find it particulary onerous a task as long as I had something to catch the flakes in. You do need an intermediate material, like paper or birch bark, to turn those white-hot flakes into a normal flame, just as you would with a match.

Btw, I always find the three words "tinder, kindling, and fuel" to be inadequate to describe the process of firemaking.
As I understand it, "tinder" is the thing that catches the spark - the cotton wool, for example - whereas kindling is the small pieces of wood that are used to ignite progressively larger pieces of wood until the fire is self-sustaining. But what then is the newsprint/birch bark? Is it tinder, or kindling? Maybe I should refer to it as "tindling" ;-) I can't call it "kinder" because that would scandalise any German visitors. <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> )

You do not need to hold it that far away. Place it so that the end of the flint is resting ontop of the tinder, This way all the sparks fall where you want them.

Dave,
I don't think the problem is so much too much petroleum jelly, but not enough dry cotton. I made a run of balls out of 3-x size cotton by rubbing the jelly on the outside of the ball, but not all the way through it. I stuffed them into a match safe and went hiking. Once in the field, I split the ball open, pulled the dry fibers out (I realize that this is not consistent with a one handed ignition), and placed it on a piece of bark. I was comparing a BM, and a Spark-Lite. Both ignited the dry fibers first, second, or third attempt (and did so in future tests as well). I also used the back of a knife blade (AUS 6, I believe) on the BM to create sparks. I think the trick is to see that the dry cotton acts as a wick and the saturated cotton makes the jelly available to those wicks.
FWIW,
Biscuits

Hi all - thanks for the long list of good suggestions. I'm going to give it another try this week - and I'll let you know where I get with it. Thanks again for all the help.
Dave

The file on a multi-tool, such as the Wave, makes quick work of a MFS bar with little effort.

Gentlemen,

I have read this thread several times, yet do not quite understand the circumstances in which one may be reduced to starting fires with simple sparks.

Is there a scenario that is being played out that was implicit?

My BOB has several containers of "lifeboat matches" - purely as a backup to a Brunton Helios. There really isnt much more bulk added by having the Helios.

In extreme cold butane can become unable to turn into a gaseous state.This makes it unable to light.I have witnessed this myself.I had the pleasure <img src="images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />of spending almost a month above the Arctic circle.This was compliments of U.S.Navy.In very damp conditions(rain forests,monsoons)even life boat matches have difficulty.Metal flint bars can create sparks hotter than matches.As for their size and weight they can start more fires than matches you could carry comfortably.So if with practice you learn to start a fire with just a spark you can handle most any thing.Also welcome to the forum.
BOATMAN