Thoughts?

https://www.facebook.com/creeativeideas/videos/1720721468203787/

This technique might come in handy. What else would work besides a gum wrapper? I think I will always pack matches and a Bic....at a minimum.

You have that tech in every car - electric cigar lighter

Any thin metal will do just fine. In the army I've been using an ordinary paper clip over a D cell-like rechargeable battery (procured from the tank commander's radio communicator) to light up my cigarette every other hour for at least 2 years in a row

But in my EDC kit (see the recent thread about the survival belt) I have a dedicated nichrome wire piece (about 1', 150-200 ga., almost invisible piece of gear), which can light up as many fires as you have energy in any of your batteries, solar panels, or any other sources of electricity. It's long enough to be used even in the 110V outlet without burning off as that gum foil (there is a certain lifespan in it indeed, but a very long one, if you know how to even the wear). Also, you can use it to improvise a voltage divider (to get proper charging voltage, i.e. 5V, from any other DC voltage, i.e. 12V), a potentiometer for electronics improvisation, boil water with it (with enough electricity), use it as a space heater element (in a small space, or even over a body part). Its resistance to heat allows to use it as a friction saw on many materials as well, I'm yet to try using it with some tinder to see if I could make a fire just from that friction, without electricity at all.

Keep in mind, that with the foil the trick is to prepare a proper "sand clock" shape, so the ignition of the paper cover is controllable (starts on the narrow length, not under your fingers). With the bare wire, just make a little handle after the contact point on one end, so you can hold it by that colder piece shorting the circuit long enough to ignite your tinder (but make it quick so not to blow the battery). By the way, when watching survival shows/movies, I can't refrain from laughing at people deligently procuring sparks from their car battery for like an hour to ignite a piece of tinder with them

Nice post Alex! Any recommendations on where to procure this wire? I can see what I will be practicing this weekend.

Thanks. It should be available in electronics hobby shops, as it's often used to improvise precise ohmage resistors. I've got mine off eBay many years ago, just search for Nichrome wire.

By the way, discard my gauge sizing, I'm not good with that imperial system's part, so I'd rather check what I have exactly on the spool when I get home tonight. But here is the guidance table to follow:



To ignite paper you need as Ray Bradbury has suggested once 451F temperature or more (less for the fine tinder). A typical alkaline AA/AAA battery can give you bursts of current up to 1 Amp easily without any harm to its chemistry, so, anything thinner than 30 ga. should work well, according to the table. The thinner is better as that will allow to use less current for ignition or achieve higher temps for less favorable tinder, and also that's better for sawing as it will create a higher cutting pressure.

For the resistance, you need to chose the one which will allow the current from the table on the length of approximately 2.5" It also depends on the wire diameter, but also on the composition of the wire. The Ohms law should help in selection. R = V/I Where V=1.5Volt, I- from the table e.g. 0.3A and keep in mind that the wire is labeled per foot, so the stated resistance must be approx. no more than 5 times higher than what you have calculated for ignition.

However you must be especially careful with thinner wire, as it can get extremely hot even from an AA battery, so you should be able to stop heating any moment and reliably, so your skin and equipment are not damaged by extreme heat. To reliably ignite the tinder without overheating the device you must assure a good contact between tinder and the wire. I'm making a loose spiral out of mine (it's stored in that shape actually, as you can see on my LM Wave image in the Belt thread), and using only part of it to boost the current. Keep in mind though, that even a soft kink will almost certainly break the nichrome wire.

Way back when I was a kid (70's), I used nichrome wire for igniting model rocket motors. I'm guessing it was about 24-28ga with the tip dipped in some sort of ignitable material. We used 6-12 volt battery systems to heat the wire which ignited the tip which ignited the solid fuel propellant in the motors. I presume it is still used in today's rocket motors so you should be able to find it in hobby stores.

0000 steel wool is also very fine and can be used with 1.5v batteries and is dirt cheap. Brillo/SOS pads with the soap cleaned off would work just as well since they are basically the same thing.

I'll have to try out that gum wrapper foil trick for myself! It looks like they were using the same gum as my favourite.
...I just tried it out -- my fingers got real hot before the paper did so I will have to experiment with the proper width of the foil to work with.

Anyone know the diameter of the nichrome wire in a hairdryer?


Or a used Toaster? (onely 2.99 each at goodwill)

If you want nichrome wire you can get it by the roll at smoke shops, apparently its used in those new vape things.

Defiantly a neat trick.

*You can also throw sparks from a piece of high carbon 1095.
using a piece of white quarts. which you can virtually find anywhere. just like flint and steel its a matter of persistence and a pain.*