FIRE STARTING TINDER IDEAS

Hi ya'll. I am new on here, but have read on the ETS site extensively. I am working on a good PSK and really need some ideas for tinders.I have tried the vasoline soaked cotton balls recently and nearly froze my butt off trying to get a fire going like that. Is there any secrets to available items that can be used for this? How about tampons? They are about the densest type of cotton you can have. what's the possibility of using some of these soaked in the fire ribbon and vacuum packed?? Thoughts?

I recommend you give the vaseline/cotton another try. It works very well for me....always. Make sure you have used real cotton not some poly substitute. Mine is coated with vaseline not dripping, but coated. I place a tuft that I have pulled apart some on a curl of wood....



Then holding the firesteel right on the cotton, I hold the knife spine steady



and pull the firesteel.



Transfer the chip to your prepared fire and away it goes



I stuff my cotton into a small candy tin. I usually take a couple of cotton balls and lay on some vaseline, put these in the tin, cover with a pulled out cotton ball, squash with my thumb, lay on some vaseline, another pulled out cotton ball, squash.....ad nasuem until the tin is stuffed full. This forces the vaseline through the cotton and any excess is squeezed out. I pull out one or half of one cotton ball for a typical spark strike. This little flat Clik-Clak tin holds plenty of pieces.



For my kits I have made Tinder Straws...a plastic drinking straw stuffed with vaseline/cotton with the ends folded over and secured with another piece of plastic straw. These work great to keep the PSK from being coated with vaseline.

There are probably one or more threads here about tinder straws.

Nice pics.

Schwert,

What is the model of stove you are using in your pics?...Thanks!

Dan e boy.

I believe it's a kelly kettle.

Lee

I'll have to try this the way you described. Seems I may have had too much vasoline. 15 years in the Air Force has taught me the value of LOTS of vasoline for trips to the commander's office. So, where did you find that fine cutting instrument in the pics, and what was the cost?

That is indeed a Kelly Kettle, the one-pint size. I really like it as a brewup stove...but it is for hot water only not cooking.

I was able to beg my way into buying the larger size Kettle just this month, but I am being forced to wait for it until my birthday....

Many of you may have seen me post pictures from an article I have up at Jimbos place or at JM's Outdoors-Magazine.

http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=126

I think you can have too much vaseline on the cotton. Mine is definately greasy feeling but the cotton fibers are not completely matted down when I pull a ball apart. I think the loose thin fibers catch the spark then the more matted vaseline coated mass takes over to give a long burn time.

If yours was real cotton then either it was too matted or too coated. I have just never had this sort of tinder fail me, so give it another go for sure.

That knife was made by Nick Wheeler, and once again more information (as well as most of the above pictures) can be seen in an article at JM's Outdoors-Magazine.

http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=175

And welcome to the forum.

Definitely, too much vaseline will make it hard to light. A dry cotton ball is easiest to light, but burns too quick to be useful. A bit of vaseline makes it burn longer. Too much smothers it.

I have better luck with fluffed cotton with vasoline, rather than matted.

Sue

Yea, you only need a enough to make it feel very slightly greasy if sqeezed, it shouldn't be messy and you shouldn't see any vasoline at all.

I appreciate all the posts and advice. Thanks for the welcome too!

The goal is to put as much Vaseline on the outside of the cotton ball as possible while keeping a "dry" core inside the puff. I found putting a handfull of cotton ball in a Ziplok bag along with a big glob of Vaseline seem to work find. That prevents me from overworking the balls - which would force too much Vaseline inside. I just leave them stored in the Ziplok bag, or if space is tight I transfer them to a snack-sized bag.

When you want to light them, pull the ball apart a bit and apply the spark to the dry core. It usually lights very easily. The Vaseline will make it burn a fairly long time.

I've also been known to smear some of the Vaseline on the adjacent wood tinder under the theory that it would help it light. I'm not sure if it really helps much though.

That sounds pretty simple and should work great. FWIW, I don't have any problem sparking up cotton balls that I've soaked in melted vaseline and squeezed out all the excess. YMMV. The dry ones ARE easier to light until you get the hang of it and I have noticed some folks have a little more trouble with vaseline soaked ones in sub-freezing temps. Your wet 'n dry technique should work great for those cases.

Tom

I too was having problems with vaseline soaked cotton balls.

After reading this post, i realized that the problem was the cotton was not 100% cotton and i had too much vaseline.

Last night i used 100% cotton with lightly glazed vaseline and it worked like a champ.

Thanks guys

I know this is an old thread but I was finally able to get on here and read a little bit. I did some searching today and found the awesome pill boxes from sunshine Products. I wonder if anyone knows how long the military lifeboat matches are? I was thinking one of the large pill boxes would make a fine container for some of those matches...but I don't know what length to buy...
they are spendy, but I love machined, tough items like that...spoiled i guess...

Hi MMullins.

The random match I pulled and measured was just under 2" (it was 1" and 15/16ths). There is some irregularity consider how big the head is and how long the stick is.

Mine are also NOT strike anywhere, so you'll have to remember to leave room for the striker too. I use a matchsafe built by K&M industries. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> They fit the criteria (tough, machined and cool).

I just went to the K&M site and don't see any matchsafe stuff listed. There are looks like 2 different companies, one is a manufacturing outfit, the other a source for outdoor gear...which do I use and do you have a link to that?

Here is a little fire making story for you...some years ago, a buddy and I decided we needed to try out more of the things we had accumulated for various survival applications. A prime one being firemaking articles. We each had a collection of magical tinder products guaranteed to light a fire in any condition, and so on. Well we headed up to a nice cool pine forest in the mountains away from the masses and prodceded to leave all the comfort items in the vehicle and walked off with our packs stuffed with "emergency" gear only. Well, it was raining and when we set up a nice tarp shelter and began the process of cooking, we of course needed a fire, having no stove with us. We gathered the driest wood we could find, tinder, kindling and so on. Then we tried tablets, tinder dry products, fire ribbon that had been stored maybe too long and so forth. We were after a point considering hiking back to the car to get a stove, since nothing we had worked, no method was able to get a fire going despite any earned experience we applied. Then in a last ditch attempt I lit a little Starburst candy wrapper from my pocket, I had been chewing on them all day. Like magic, after adding one or two more starburst wrappers we had the start of a nice hot fire in the rain, with soaked wood. Starbusrt wrappers are nothing more than wax paper about 2 inches square. With some more testing it was found that a dry cotton ball could be lit within a strike or two by a metal match and a wax paper ball would burn hot enough and long enough to start most damp kindling, without much effort there was fire. The nice thing about the plain cotton balls and wax paper balls is they are cheap, cheap and can be carried in a 35mm film canister and they never go bad over time, they always work, every time you use them. To this day, I carry a film canister with about 5 or 6 cotton balls and a like number of wax paper balls made by tearing off about a 6in piece of waxpaper from a standard roll and wadding it up and stuffing it in with the cotton balls, alternating one to one. I do not count on any miracle product that can dry out over time or have the chemical evaporate out if it and will not work when needed in an emergency. Same reason I do not soak cotton balls in vaseline, they can dry out and fail when needed. Cheers!

Widget, thanks for that story...sometimes ya have to improvise and overcome..I too had some troubles starting afire last winter here in AK. It was not a situation or anything, me and a buddy went on a short 4-wheeler ride and there ended up being a LOT of snow..we had stopped and wanted to make a fire, warm up and roast some hotdogs..we had extra gas, an axe, plenty of wood, etc. We ended up using an entire 1.5 gallon can of gas but that wood was not going to lite. Never did get it going, so we decided we were screwed out of hotdogs and headed home. Lesson well learned...sometimes the best laid plans don't go right. I still can't figure why that wood never did catch....the snow burned with the gas sort of, but didn't touch the wood...the wood came from a tree that had fallen during the winter..maybe it had sap up in it yet. At any rate, if that had been a tough situation for me, I would still be frozen right there......except that I could have walked back to the road...we weren't but 5 or 6 miles off the main road.

Gas doesn't burn wood if you put it on the wood, you need to put it UNDER the wood. In my junior high school science class, some kids would douse their hand in alcohol, and light it. It doesn't hurt, because the evaporation of the alcohol cools your hand off as much as the flames heat it up*. Gas on wood is similar. Plus, green wood also won't burn very readily, the water content keeps it from burning.


*Note: You have to make sure you put it out before the alcohol is all gone. Also, don't do it if you have hair on your arms, otherwise that will change!

I bet what Goatrider said is correct about the gas burning off. I can't imagine a gallon and a half of gas not getting a fire going!
I find that no matter how often I am out or how much older I get, I still learn something new every time. It may be something simple or it could be something major. Often you find a piece of equipment is inadequate or fails, sometimes you realize all of a sudden that you need to have something with you that you left behind or need to purchase. Maybe that is why I have so much gear, I like to try things out, that way I learn myself what works and what doesn't. CHeers!

this is precisely why CABELAS has more of MY money than I do!!!

Is the vasaline there to keep the cotton dry or some other purpose? Dry cotton balls light just as well as vasaline-dipped.

I also tried Neosporin - it lights just as well and adds another use for the cotton balls.

It's there to make it burn longer and hotter. The more you add, the longer it burns, but the harder it is to light. Dry is easiest to light.

Interesting take on using that Neosporin...I might have to try that as that would be a useful thing to have to treat minor injuries or cuts. when I go riding my wheelers this weekend, I am gonna try this vasoline soaked cotton ball thing once again and try to perfect that process....hopefully, the weather will be conducive to fire-making....wouldn't want to try making fire in the rain! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Anything that you might have on you that is Vasoline- or oil-based could probably be used: lipstick (yeah, guys!), Chapstick, lanolin-based hand lotions, etc).

About the waxed paper: I just slipped 3 credit credit-sized pieces inside my EDC flat -- crumpled first takes too much space, & I can always crumple them when the need arises.

Sue

The petroleum jelly is a fuel. The peroleum jelly is melted by the flame and wicked to the surface by the cotton. The petroleum jelly burns off first. After all the fuel is used up, the cotton ball burns up, but hopefully by this time your fire is well underway.

Technically speaking, the petroleum jelly does not make the cotton burn longer. A cotton ball will burn up in about 30 seconds. The petroleum jelly on the cotton ball will just burn for 2 or 3 minutes before the cotton ball starts to burn.

So you want the petroleum jelly on the outside and dry cotton on the inside because the dry cotton will readily accept the spark and turn it into flame which in turn starts to melt the petroleum jelly and bring it to the surface. This said, more petroleum jelly might be good as long as the middle of the cotton remains dry and you can pull the cotton ball apart without pressing all that extra jelly into the middle. The petroleum jelly probably also keeps the inside of the cotton ball dry too, so even though it might be a stretch, it does in effect water proof the cotton.

Cody Lundin even points out that the excess petroleum jelly can be used on dry skin. This makes your fire starter a multi use item.

I use the same technique and it hasn't let me down yet. In my PSK I keep the cotton wall in drinking straws as well but I seal the end by using hot pliers

MMullins,

The K&M Industries that makes the matchcase does not have a website.

Keith Lunders and his wife make these and soon....fingers-crossed soon, they should be available once again.



They will NOT be engraved but will come in brass or black anodized aluminum.

I am trying to get a few orange powdercoated versions too, but this may not happen.



I will be assisting the Lunders out with these and will announce when they become available.

Schwert, that thing in your pic looks neat and handy. I just ordered a set of the 7/8 inch "pillcases" with a few different options from the Sunshine Products guy in Ca. I spent a ton too much on it, but I'm single and who cares? i don't have to ask permission. I got it with the pieces to make basically a 2 or 3 compartmented match/tinder case...I can't wait to see it..

How much does that K&M case sell for, normally??

K&M cases will sell for right around $20 plus shipping.

Keith has not yet received the compasses from Finland so I am estimating cost now, but it will be close.

The new compasses he has ordered will be better than the Brunton's supplied on the last go around. These will be jeweled like the K&M cases of old.

I will be curious to see how those Sunshine cases are. I almost ordered a selection a year or so back. They look very nice and the multiple sizes should be good.

Let us know.

Randy,

Will they be liquid filled or dry?

Pete

How many will be available, is it possible to do a preorder? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

>>I also tried Neosporin - it lights just as well and adds another use for the cotton balls. <<

This is a good point - I just forget about the vasoline altogether in my kit, and just pack a tube of triple antibiotic ointment (the generic neosporin).

It comes in convenient-sized squeezable tubes. I find a 1 oz. tube fits well in almost any FAK - it's one of the larger items, but also one of the most useful. I don't bother with the individually sealed foil packets.

It's just as flammable as vasoline, so for that purpose it works just as well. Just squeeze a dollop into a cotton ball and you're ready to go.

It can also be applied to dry skin or to provide protection from a cold wind, and works as well or better in that regard.

Chapped lips will heal and the condition of flaking skin will improve in a day or two - I find it especially useful in dealing with hangnails and messy cuticles - cleans them right up in a day or two.

And it can also be placed on superficial wounds (i.e. blisters on the feet, insect bites or small scratches) to speed healing. Even in general, I find it useful to occasionally apply to my feet; its utility will only be increased in the back country

It can also be used as a tool or machine lubricant in a pinch.

I will give a full report when I get them and figure out how I want to fill it all up. thanks for all the great ideas!

Paramedicpete,

These will be liquid filled Suunto compasses. Possibly luminescent. Keith uses these a few years ago, but the whole Silva/Johnson/Suunto/Nexus/Brunton thing seemed to have made these impossible to import. He was using Brunton compasses but each shipment of hundreds would only have a few workable compasses.....so he essentially had to stop making the cases. But he got a line on 1800 of these very good Suunto jeweled versions and is working out a deal with them to buy some.

03lab,

I am keeping a list of interested parties. You can PM me for addition to the list.

Doug has been kind enough to inform me that once Keith is once again making compasses he will provide a link for interested parties. We will not carry on the business of selling in the forum however.

Mark,

Forget the Vaseline cotton balls. Spend $3.00 and get a package of Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder. It is impregnated with wax. It is not messy. To use: take one and pull it in half and then put the halves back together with the frayed ends up. Hit it with anything like a spark and it will burn for a good 3 minutes. If you add some fatwood you have the best change of starting a fire there is.
Tinder

I reckon a feller could spend $700 on all this stuff and need a 4X4 truck to haul it all around in if he weren't being careful!

Yeah, what he said.

Think of the cotton ball as a wick and the petroleum jelly as the wax of a candle. The wax melts and provides the fuel. The wick keeps the flame.

Try a simple expierment. Light a cotton ball soaked with petroleum jelly. Then immediately light a plain cotton ball. The plain will burn itself out in about half a minute. Two or three minutes later, the other is still burning.

If you have oversized tinder or wet tinder, which is more likley to generate enough heat to ignite the tinder? The one with the longer burn time.

Both will work as tinder. The petroleum jelly improves your chances.

Ok, well it looks like there was a glitch in whatever I did before trying to get a fire with vasoline cotton balls. I got some XL balls the other day from Wal-Mart and the jar of goop and although I tried this out in my fireplace, I didn't even have to shave the magnesium off the fire starter. i just struck the bar and away it went...I want to try it also water soaked, in the rain, etc..but so far, so good. I can't wait to get into the outdoors and cook hotdogs over a fire I built without a BIC!!
I am stoked now..I already feel more secure in knowing them dang cotton balls will burn forever with cheap old vasoline!!

I tested Vaseline and cotton balls. When it is dry, it is wonderful for starting a fire. It is very easy to start and burns with a big flame for a long time. When it gets wet it is useless. If you are counting on it to save your life from hypothermia when it is cold and wet you might die trying to light it. I recommend Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder and/or a small 3” piece of pine pitch wood. You use the pitch wood like a magnesium block. You scrape the side until you get a pile the size of a quarter. Then you hit it with a spark. It will burn for about 30 seconds. It works well when wet.

Although I agree with your other recommendations, I don't share your experience about vaseline/cotton. I've taken a bit, dropped it in a slush puddle, shaken the water off and blotted slightly, then found it ignited well with my firesteel (once, actually in a heavy snow storm). I do spread and pull the cotton ball out to almost a gauze-like sheet, which I bunch up a bit. It actually did save my life from hypothermia in the cold/wet.

I had to burn some trash yesterday, and decided to light the fire using my BSA hotspark, experimenting with various kinds of tinder.

Dog hair doesn't work.

The leaves and thick paper I had to hand didn't work, even when I held them on top of the rod. The paper almost went, but not quite.

Finally, I scraped some scraps of cotton string into a fluff, and that did the trick.

Bear

Hair will work, but if you've got enough to start your tinder, you'll probably loose your lunch, as it stinks to high heaven, and the smell lingers for days(triple+ showers won't get rid of the smell if you singe too much body hair, and yes I do know from personal experience).

Wildfire163:

That's what happens when you have THOUSANDS of rounds of rifle ammunition laying around, and no slingshots. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

"The leaves and thick paper I had to hand didn't work, even when I held them on top of the rod. The paper almost went, but not quite." -- Paper can sometimes be made to work if you scrape thin bits off the surface with a knife. A spark from a flint has a high temperature but low heat. It's hot but it cools down quickly, so it works best to ignite something that's very finely divided. It can't heat thick paper enough but it can heat thin scrapings or paper dust. Finely divided tinder is also more flammable because it has more exposure to oxygen. These are reasons why cotton wool is so good.

I find commercial tinder works best, and carry some of the SparkLite tinder, but like a cigarette lighter or matches it will eventually be all used up. If you can improvise tinder, a flint rod will start fires indefinitely. There are plants that work, but in an urban setting paper may be easier to find.

I started a fire once with the lint in my pocket. And if you're wearing something cotton, you can sometimes scrape the surface to make your own lint.

Sue

Susan:

Let us not forget that if your bellybutton is an "innie", you can always get some lint out of there. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Pity the poor unfortunates that have an "outie" bellybutton. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I failed to mention in my original post that a big part of my trash fire starting experiment was to do it with what I had in my pockets at that moment.

I had the BSA Hot Spark and a Leatherman SideClip and a PocketWrench II, but no actual tinder. Of all the materials in the trash, the cotton twine worked with just a few tries.

Bear