Hey everyone! It seems no matter what site I visit (retail or forum) they have their own or different brand of tender. Some people on forums make their own and store that as well. I want to do a test of all the different types of tender out there (purchased and made).

So if everyone could post up what they use, and if purchased WHERE they purchased it from. (Website) And any details regarding it (likes, dislikes, burn time, etc.)

I`ll report back after conducting multiple tests.

-Todd

i use:
cotonwol ( for sale everywhere)
cotonwol + vaseline
steelwool (rarely) (hardware store)
charcloth (homemade)
fatwood (can be found in nature, but not locally for me)

the rest are natural tinder, like dry birch bark, cattill, etc.

Cotton Balls mixed with vasoline - from the bathroom cabinet
Bicycle innertube cut into "Ranger Bands" - from the garage
Bicycle tube patch repair glue - from the local REI store
Candle stub - from the kitchen junk drawer
Trick magnesium birthday candles - from the local grocery store
Esbit fuel tablets - from the local army surplus store
Triox fuel bars - from the local army surplus store
WetFire (name?) waterproof tinder - from an NRA survival kit with a BlastMatch, StarFlash, and JetScream

Of these, only the cotton balls w/vasoline and the WetFire might be truely called tinder because they can catch a spark from a ferro rod. But the other things are similar to tinder in that they're the first things you might light with a match or BIC lighter, and then use to ignite larger things.

Shavings from pencil sharpner

Cotton balls with antibiotic ointment instead of vaseline. No difference since both are white petroleum. antib ointment and cotton ball more versatile.

ToddW,

This is exactly what I did. I tried all the different tinder I could get my hands on. I tried them under different conditions; in the wind, wet, and one handed. The Vaseline cotton balls work very good. Their down side is that they are messy and if they are wet they will not light. Pitch/Fat wood also is great! It just takes some work to scrape off a quarter size pile. It gunk’s up your blade and when it burns it leaves a nasty mess and puts out black smoke. It is possible to carry a piece of fatwood in your pocket and it will be good for dozens of fires. The TinderQuick that comes with the SparkLite is also good.

The best that I found is --- Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder. It is sold in many sporting goods stores. REI and Sportsman’s Warehouse have it here in Phoenix. It is not messy but sticks to what you place it on. You can pull a piece off and put it on the end of a stick, hit it with a ferro rod, and use it like a big match. You can soak it in water, pull up some loose strands and it will light with your ferro rod. Once lit it will burn for a good 5 to 7 minutes with a big flame. For $2.99 your get 10 pieces in the package. You can fit 6 in a film canister. One piece can start several fires. If everything is wet you might want to use 2 pieces to have a big flame for a long time. It can be lit one handed with a SparkLite. You can also stick your knife in the ground and pull your ferro rod along the edge to throw sparks on the tinder.

is that not merely a bulky version of Tinder Quick?

Awesome!
$2.99 seems like a good price for 10 pieces!

I can't wait to start the testing. I`ll have multiple fire starting tools to test with as well. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I compared tinder quick and coghlan's tinder last year, I liked tinder quick better. Coghlans is more saturated, so it's harder to catch a spark. Burns longer because of it, though.

I have used both extensively and the big difference between Tinderquick and Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder is that the Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder has more wax (a lot more) and less cotton and is thus a lot messier, especially in 100 degree weather such as we have this time of year where I live. For this reason I much prefer the Tinderquick but otherwise both are very effective. Both light easily (when properly "fluffed") and both have burn times plenty long enough for anyone with the slightest amount of experience to be able to light a fire.

Have you tried squashing the tinder flat before putting them into the film canister? you could probably stuff more in that way. I squashed 3 and stuffed them into my altoids tin, a little messy but not too much..... <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

BTW, I love these too. Cheap and easily available and HOT....

Well, for the surest ignition, I carry a film cannister of Accurate Arms Old No. 9 gunpowder. You set this in a bed of tinder, even somewhat moist tinder, and it will catch the lightest spark and produce an intense heat that will light up any fire.

The old boy scout standard, dryer lint with candlewax melted into it.

I like to collect the dried pitch off of douglas fir trees and such. It makes a really nice fire and catches easily, though it needs a bit of an accelerant at first. My best combo is a chunk of bark with some pitch laid in it, with a small pile of gunpowder in the middle. A few dry twigs handy, and you've got yourself the makings of a good fire.

I guess growing up a pyromaniac did have it's pluses. My brother and I sent enough babysitters home never to return, that's for sure.

Want something that will start a fire only when it is wet, pack a load of carbide with you. Just be careful lighting it off. I've managed to light a pile of carbide that I dripped a little water on and have it burn for a good 10 or 15 minutes. Of course, that was controlled conditions. If the carbide gets too wet, you could end up with it making more acetylene than you want. Hmm, maybe that is not the best suggestion after all... <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Oh, man -- you sure we didn't know each other in a prior life? My great uncle, whose idea of a vacation was to go keep camp for pack trip elk hunters for a month and a half every year, used to carry carbide. [For the uninitiated: carbide powder mixed with water produces acetylene gas, as in oxy-acetylene welding torches].

We got to a bad camp outside Coleman, Texas one really nasty night. Wet 20*, sleet, and lots of wind. There was an old school bus dropped there, shades of "Into the Wild." It had a cast iron pot sheep hearder's stove laid on a piece of oil field plate, and a bunch of wet wood laid up outside. Rastus [Rastus McIntosh - white man - given name - go figure, I never was able to find outwhy they named hum that] laid a good bed of kind of large kindling, said 'stand back, struck a match which he laid in the damp fire bed still burning, and sprinkled carbine powder on that semi-wet wood. I am surprised the cast iron stove survived. The fire lit. We got warm. I don't have the cajones to carry carbide powder.

"I guess growing up a pyromaniac did have it's pluses."

That reminds me of my younger pyromaniac days. We used to play around with Sodium Chlorate (weed killer) mixed with sugar 50/50. That was some neat burning stuff. Don't know if it would catch a spark from a fero rod though. Maybe from one of those big honking BlastMatches. These days playing with a mixture like that would probably get you branded as a terrorist, but back in my youth it was standard fair for bored teenage boys!

Some alcohol swabs (prep pads) from the Walgreens carry flat and make a nice backup tinder. They'll light pretty easily from a Sparklite, and they cost about $3 for a whole bunch. And you can clean a booboo with 'em, too.

There's Tinder Card which I reviewed in this thread .

I can usually get paper to light, if I scrape it into shavings with a knife.

The stuff I actually rely on is TinderQuik, that you know about. And the gas in my cigarette lighter - that ignites with a spark too <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

As will the meths in a Trangia stove if it's at all warm. That's actually quite significant. You can get the stove lit and boiling water with just its fuel and a sparky thing. With Esbit-style hex tabs you need a good flame to get them going; even a cigarette lighter is hardly good enough if its windy.

Want to play chemist? Try potassium permanganate and glycol (antifreeze). Be sure to keep them in appropriate leak proof containers in different sections of your pack...

M

I couldn't argee more. Alcohol swabs are a great dual use item which is while you'll always find them in all but the very smallest of my kits. They catch even the smallest spark very easily and are also great for their intended purposes in a FAK.

Just found this [color:"blue"] http://www.frontiersurvival.com/firerock6oz.html [/color] on the internet last night. I havn't tried it, but it looks interesting.

An interesting product, and a decent website.

Hmm, I wonder what they're using as the binder/accelerant?

15-20 minutes burn time. That's promising. I wonder how waterproof/windproof it is. Someone should try this stuff out and let us know. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I`ve got almost all the above mentioned on hand and ordered the rocks.

Once I get a free day and all the test equipment setup I`ll report back with results for almost all of the above mentioned.

Pencil sharpener


I tried using a pencil sharpener over the weekend to see if it is useful for making a fire. The pencil sharpener makes wonderful paper thin shavings. It has been raining here in Phoenix. All I found in my back yard was a green twig. I made a quarter size pile on my Dutch Oven table. I tried my sparker on it. No good! I tried my lighter on it. No good. Even shaved paper thin, green wood will not burn. I found a dry twig in a parking lot. It made a nice pile of dry shavings. I have no idea what plant it came from. I made a quarter size pile of shavings from it. It would not light from my BS Hot Spark. I tried using a lighter. It lit but did not want to stay lit. My impression is that a pencil sharpener has no utility over a sharp knife. You can scrape wood with your knife to get fine tinder.

Noting beats cotton based tinder!

Wow. Completely different than my experience. Guess that is why redundency is a good thing.

Did I hear right? Are you a DO nut as well? That was quite an ingenious notion. Too bad it didn't yield good results.

I use my boy scout firestarters to light all my charcoal fires, and most of my camp fires as well. That is the old carboard egg carton with dryer lint and wax. Works like a champ every time.

Something else I used to make was sawdust cakes using old toilet paper rolls stuffed with sawdust and melted wax. I would stuff them real tight in my vise, let the wax set up then hacksaw the filled tube into half inch wafers. I wrapped each wafer in saran wrap, and ziploc bagged them into packable bunches. I found out you can do the same and make "fatwood" presto logs using confierous pitch and wax as the binder. You gotta use fresh pitch that is clear and soft instead of the yellow, crystallized type. Done right, them wafers will burn for quite a while, and put out a lot of flame and heat.