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.