Fire Piston (Doug)

I couldn't find where these had ever been discussed on this forum before, but as a certified gadget-freak, I thought they looked way cool and very useful. I would be curious as to what Doug and anyone else thinks of them. Any thoughts?

http://www.firepistons.com/

We had a discussion long ago here about firepistons. One of the fellows worked so well it either nearly burned down the house or his dog…cannot quite remember, but it is what prompted me to order one from Jeff Wagner at Wilderness Solutions.

This is it:



It has a tinder cavity in the handle:



And a wooden ring that allowed me to add a kangaroo braid neck cord.



These are real fun fire tools. I now have 3 of them and enjoy using them. They work very well with tinder fungus and are always interesting to any onlookers. Tinder and kindling prep is all important with these as it is with traditional flint and steel techniques. A fun and useful tool but not my first choice for firemaking.

don't get them wet and let the wood swell. Sorry, but Im a PJ and cotton ball man myself, from there I can use flint, matches or even a frezenel lens. And no I have not tryed it.

There are some very cool and really beautiful ones offered these days. Fun to play with, interesting from both a historical perspective and for demonstrating various physical principles, but IMO not a **practical** solution to firemaking in a real emergency.

A personal acquaintance in the 'primative movement' made the mistake of attracting the attention of my city police force. Would anyone hazard what a fire piston with funny organics inside looks like? They are everything Randy (you have to many nice toys there from my Starbucks Vente Americano dollars guy) and Doug posted. But the one gift all anthropologists tell me indigenous, traditional people with little contact appreciate most are contemporary firemaking devises; bic lighters and magnesium bars!These people know to well the advantages of a quickly ignited fire, their equivelent to a microwave dinner when you stagger in at 5:45 P.M. monday evening.

I haven't played with one yet, but I've looked at them. For a serious tool, at this point, you should be able to avoid the wooden ones (and not a bad idea when with people who might think it is something else- check the archives for the last time we had this discussion).

At my favorite survial gear place online, I found these:
Economy model
aluminum and lexan
Way cool pen size with ferro rod

I'm thinking some tax money might go for one of those latter ones.

Modern firemaking equipment might be mana from heaven for indigenous peoples but, and it's a BIG but, they are very expensive in terms of their income. It's also a very bad idea for them to become reliant on tools that might "go away" with no warning. It's something that Ray Mears has major issues with. With excellent reason.

I have to disagree with Doug about use in a real emergency. Fire Pistons have been around for a very long time. It's a simple case of practice, practice, practice.

I would absolutely not avoid wood firepistons as they are very smooth and work exceptionally well. I live where it is damp enough and these simply do not have any issues with swelling. Here are my others made by Darrel Aune.

This one a handdrill version with bone ember pick.



A better look at the pick:



The O-ring version, a simpler version to maintain but not quite as fun.



And the family with the two from Darrel and the one from Jeff.



I have the best luck using tinder fungus to make an ember and then transferring it to a piece of char for my cedar tinder nest.

While I do not carry these as my first choice for an essential fire, I do carry and use for the absolute fun and amazement of making a fire by compression.

The new shirt pocket version with firesteel looks sort of interesting too. I may have to add one of those. I also have one of the lexan versions but it works much less reliably than my Cocobolo ones.

Fire pistons and (real) flint & steel seem like perfect, everlasting fire producers until you realize that they last only as long as the very special tinder does.

Sure, you can carry a large supply of tinder fungus for your fire piston, but then why not just carry a BIC lighter, matches and a ferro rod?

On the other hand it is good to *know* about fire pistons, bow drills, flint & steel, etc. because you can at least try to make them if you are caught out there with nothing at all.

I think that the best thing about using firepistons, flint and steel, fire drills, handdrills, and firesteels is that one learns rapidly that the spark or the coal is only the beginning. Without a proper tinder and kindling you will not get a fire.

Most novice match and BIC users fail to do adequate fire prep and never learn how to prepare a proper fire set when the conditions are a bit less than ideal.

Char, tinder fungus, seed heads, bark nests, bark scrapings and all the other things used with the more "primative" methods teach fire prep well.

They are quite bulky - one of the bulkiest ways of starting a fire I know. Much bigger than a Bic or a Sparklite or matches or whatever. Mine has a danger of drying out and you have to keep the seal lubricated (I use vasaline), so it is not really an ever-lasting device even if you can improvise tinder.

If I'm somehow incapacitated and a stranger is rooting through my equipment looking for things that will help me, and they see the smooth wooden tube with the pot of vasaline next to it, "firelighter" may not be the first use they think of.

Hmm...like a little diesel engine in your pocket, or is that a ramjet?

Anybody make these out of metal?

There is a website on firepistons (of course there is), it will probably tell you more about the things than you ever wanted to know...

Any sticky fat will do. When I first read the description of these things in a book, it was stated that dog fat was used where the author first saw them.

And yes, it is about as bulky an item as you can think of for firelighting. And magnifying glasses are about the slowest. I don't think it has a place in a PSK or even a smaller pack, but in a larger pack, the smaller polycarb ones might have a place. And as a long term household item, if you have one, you're set. You don't have to reinvent the firebow to conserve matches. :P

Never seen an all metal one, but I've seen them that were part metal and part or fully polycarb.