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#54579 - 11/28/05 01:29 PM strike anywhere matches
hillbilly Offline
Enthusiast

Registered: 04/07/03
Posts: 214
Loc: Northeast Arkansas (Central Ar...
Found 6 boxes at K-mart the other day. They were hidden behind regular strike on box matches. Now I can practice waterproofing them. Any suggestions on type of nail polish, wax or anything else?

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#54580 - 11/28/05 01:51 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
elnath Offline
Newbie

Registered: 06/07/02
Posts: 38
Loc: SouthEast New Hampshire
I've had the best luck with shellac.

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#54581 - 11/28/05 02:07 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
ironraven Offline
Cranky Geek
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 4642
Loc: Vermont
Yep. Double dip them in the shellac. I found it helps to have a pair of tweezers you really don't mind using for this. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I do recommend wrapping a bit of stair tred tape around your container, or carry a sharpening stone rther than a rod. If you do the latter, you might want one with a coarse side for axes and the like, and for striking.
_________________________
-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.

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#54582 - 11/28/05 02:34 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
Anonymous
Unregistered


I've never considered them to be worth the trouble. My BOB has 2 butane lighters, magnifying glass, magnesium bar,vasolined cotton balls, 3 wick candle, . Just the sparks from the lighter or the magnesium will light the candle, as will the magnifier. A little "teepee " of fuzz sticks, above the candle, soon dry out enough to burn ok, and then they will ignite larger sticks, no matter how wet.. The Vasolined cotton should of course be reserved for real emergencies, when you get soaked in the cold in some manner.

The matches are a fire hazard to have around the house. If a mouse chews on one, it can ignite the entire box. Just shaking the box can ignite one, and then the rest of the box almost explodes.

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#54583 - 11/28/05 02:39 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
norad45 Offline
Veteran

Registered: 07/01/04
Posts: 1506
I use clear nail polish. The suggestion for shellac sounds good too. I never had much luck with wax. It would flake off in the container.

Regards, Vince

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#54584 - 11/28/05 02:57 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
ironraven Offline
Cranky Geek
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 4642
Loc: Vermont
Uh, smole? I use a couple of strike on box match heads, in a bottle cap, to keep the mice OUT of the pantry. I've never seen the mice get to anything within a half foot of the matches, or anything that they had to go over the matches to get to. They don't like the smell in my experince.

I grew up in a house with enough mice to keep four cats fit, trim and leathal. They line the corpses up at my folks bedroom door. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And yes, they heat solely with a woodstove. For years, we used strike anywheres until they became hard to get, and nothing ever happened.



Edited by ironraven (11/28/05 03:07 PM)
_________________________
-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.

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#54585 - 11/28/05 02:58 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
Malpaso Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 09/12/05
Posts: 817
Loc: MA
Here's an old Boy Scout project.

Buy a box (or boxes) of parafin. Melt it in an old pot that you don't want to use for anything else. Get some newspaper and string. Cut the newspaper into strips anywhere from 1 inch to 4 inches wide, depending on how/where you will carry/store them. Roll the newpaper up like a hand rolled cigar and tie some string around it, leaving a tail of string. Dip the whole thing in the melted parafin. While you're at it. dip the heads of the matches in the parafin as well. Now you have safety matches and firestarters. Obviously, hot climates may make a mess of your creation, but we carried them in New England summer climates with no melting.
_________________________
It's not that life is so short, it's that you're dead for so long.

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#54586 - 11/28/05 03:59 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
KenK Offline
"Be Prepared"
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 06/26/04
Posts: 2208
Loc: NE Wisconsin
I tried waterproofing strike-anywhere matches with polyeurithane and it did not work well at all. When struck the matches tend to burn poorly.

I also bought the REI waterproof matches and find them fun to watch burn. They burn very fast from the top down the fuel. Cool to watch but I have yet to try to light a fire with them.

When putting together a very small kit I guess I tend to skip the matches and go with a lighter and a small sparker. I carry a fresnel lens too, but with the number of cloudy days we have around here I'm not sure how much it will help.

Lately, when out with the Scouts, I've just been putting uncoated matches inside one or two of those orange plastic waterproof cases - along with a small piece of emory board (for fingernails) - and making sure I also have a full lighter (Windmill or Storm) and a sparker (Kershaw or Spark-Lite) along with.

I like lighting fires with matches much more than with a ligher or sparker. The shape of the match just makes it easier to reach past the small twigs and get to the tinder. When car camping the long-reach lighters work well too.

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#54587 - 11/28/05 07:38 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
Chris Kavanaugh Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 02/09/01
Posts: 3824
The first order of business is to sort out the better matches. I took a box of 250 Strike anywheres awhile back and found a goodly percentage either missing the white tip, or it was very small and actually broke off in striking. Today's strike anywheres are NOT the same chemical compound of before. They were actually used for improvised explosives and the makeup changed. There are anecdotal stories of spontaneous ignitions in matchcases, but cautionary packing with a heads up,down ,up pattern and cushioning on both ends with tinder make this unlikely. The matches are becoming difficult to find because a stupid shipping regulation lumped them with HAZMAT materials and the exhorbitant shippping costs forced many dealers to drop Them. Sealing matches is really uneccessary if you have a truly weatherproof container. Wax in fact will degrade the matchhead over time: and in fact all matches eventually degrade. Various laquers and polishes do a better job, but you must be cautious not to seal them so well they fail to ignite. The NATO lifeboats are sealed for obvious reasons and also require a more vigorous striking method. The fuel in a lifeboat is the head, and conversely a strike anywhere uses the matchstick for extended burning. And I will repeat again my old mantra about safety matches. EVERYONE knows how to strike a standard match. I don't care if your a primordial, undiscovered, indigenous tribe living in some raincloud mountain and the National Geographic helicopter just landed. The things have spread faster than the latest japanese electronic gadget we cannot live without. In our backup firemaking kit we MUST factor in our own incapacitation and figure someone else may have to light the thing.

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#54588 - 11/28/05 08:40 PM Re: strike anywhere matches
Schwert Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 03/13/02
Posts: 905
Loc: Seattle, Washington
I think strike-anywhere matches should always be a part of a kit primarily for the reasons that Chris sites.

I have never found any reason to be worried about having them in the house....on the contrary I have found so many reasons to have them that I find it sad that they are not available to all.

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