aard,<br><br>I like your idea for sealing the straw, at least at the distal end. I suspect the vaseline would coat the inside of the straw on the proximal end, thereby precluding adhesion. Conceivably the outside of the straw could be cemented with, say, an epoxy, flattened, & folded towards the middle, thereby sealing proximal end.<br><br>I haven't personally tried the plain cotton balls, so I cannot comment on them. A few seconds of burn time is no better than a match. Iin my experience, the burn time of lint was a matter of seconds. Vaseline covered cotton balls burned for nearly a minute. The cotton balls impregnated with vaseline burned about 5 minutes. YMMV.<br><br>The purpose of this fire starter/tinder, is to provide a prolonged application of heat to the other tinder/kindling to ignite it. Remember, fire requires 3 components: oxygen + fuel + heat. A brief exposure to heat is not likely to heat up the fuel enough to burn it. That is one purpose of using this prolonged igniter. If the wood is wet, additional heat & time are necessary to dry it before ignition. Similarly, very cold wood/fuel also requires additional heating time for ignition. Other factors may also complicate fire starting making an extra margin in fire starting crucial, (e.g., rain/snow).<br><br>John