Instant Firestarter

[mrbigtexan]

Update-Don't light uncured liquid nails, while it does light even easier, once lit it turns into a very thin liquid and you have a molten burning stream that is hard to put out and goes everywhere.

  i know it probably wasn't at the time but that sounds really funny

[Old Fart]

Update-Don't light uncured liquid nails, while it does light even easier, once lit it turns into a very thin liquid and you have a molten burning stream that is hard to put out and goes everywhere.

Bub,

Why is it that there seems to be more to this story than what you shared?


Did it by any chance get away from you? 

OF

[Cornbelt]

I guess all this stuff would ignite buffalo chips?

[Bubber]

Update-Don't light uncured liquid nails, while it does light even easier, once lit it turns into a very thin liquid and you have a molten burning stream that is hard to put out and goes everywhere.

Bub,

Why is it that there seems to be more to this story than what you shared?


Did it by any chance get away from you? 

OF

Sorry to disapoint you but it was not too exciting.
It was downtown on the job I am working, what isn't concrete is mud so I wasn't worried about fire. The only people around were me and the tile guy so I put a half golfball size gob on a piece of brick so I could dispose of the evidence. I lit that stuff and it proceded to turn into napalm and go everywhere. It also floats so water wouldn't put it out, mud almost did it but in the end I had to just let it burn out. The worst part was the black smoke. Start to finish it only took about 3 or 4 minutes but I was just trying to not get busted by the nieghbors who are upset about the job lasting 3 years and would love to see any member of the crew strung up.

[bilmac]

A true scientist at work.

[rex6666]

FAT WOOD is real good, it doesn't have to be from Jawga either.
My New Mexico hunting partner makes me start hunting it the minute we
get to the woods.

[Oldshooter]

do you have to put the fire out before you eat the fritos?

 

[maglvr44]

do you have to put the fire out before you eat the fritos?

No! the sporting way to eat flaming fritos is to bob for them while they are ablaze!

[Rex in OTZ]

reading down from the top I saw the part of lamp oil being kerocene, I'm pretty shure its liquid base parrifin when its really cold out that stuff will jell up like dish soap does, parrifin burns pretty clean, kerocene smokes too muchn and soots up lamp globes too much and it burns dimmer like it dosent put off enough light, Ive tried turbine fuel (Jet A) it smokes too much and goes out too easy compared to parrifin.

[kmystry]

If you take a Couglin's Fire Stick and shave off some fine shavings, it'll light in a jiffy with a ferro rod. They're waterproof, too.  I carry a few in an Altoids tin. I also carry some jute twine braided with three strands.  I just cut off about a three inch hunk of braid, fuzz it out and hit it with the ferro rod...fire!

[The Hermit]

In my backpack I carry flint, steel and char and after lots of practice got to where I could start a fire. I met up one evening with an Indian friend of mine and we decide to share a camp. He said he would get the fire started while I cut bows for bedding. He pulls out this shiny bar, scrapes off metal and then scrapes the opposite side with a knife blade, it sparks and presto.. instant fire. Go figure.
He said he got it at a Gander Mtn.
  The Hermit

[Dweezil]

Liquid hand sanitizer works well too. Mostly alcohol.

[BIGDAVE54]

Working in mining gave me a chance to dig up some fascinating things. I have a metorite a little bigger than a softball that my grandfather dug out of an undergound coal mine. I used to bring my wife home petrified tree trunk pieces that looked like a stack of giant coins when they fell out of the roof of the mine tunnel and hit the floor of the shaft. She still has a couple she sits her potted plants on. We were always afraid of them in the mines because they were hard to see in the rock and would snap your neck or back if they hit you just right. One thing besides natural glass tubes from lightening strikes that we got out of the sand mines was fat lighter stumps.Every now and then the endloader in the pit would pull up a pine tree trunk that had been buried for probably a hundred years or so.The outer wood of the tree would be rotted away,but the remnants of the trunk would be an almost solid chunk of pine resin. That stuff burns like gasoline when you set a match to it. Another new age trick is to take a 9 volt battery and stick the leads to some fine steel wool that is wrapped in cotton balls.You have to try this if you have never seen it. The steel wool will go off just like a flash bulb when it grounds between the leads on the battery.

[olydraft]

All right all ready!!! knock off all this fire starting stuff.... your causing global warming and strange weather patterns!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rusty~Gunn]

I've come up with this method. Cut a cardboard tube from empty rolls of christmas wrapper (or toilet paper rolls) into one inch lengths, and shove lint into it, then drip plenty of candle wax into the lint, soaking it well. I sometimes even soak the tube in wax to waterproof the whole thing. Lights easily, and goes for some time, more then enough to get a fire going well.

[bilmac]

The tail end of TP rolls with a few turns of paper left will burn a long time if they are soaked in a petroleum product. Pull off a few inches of paper and it's also very easy to light. Not something you would want to carry around in your backpack, but there are times around the place when I want to start a fire but I don't have the stuff readily at hand to do it right. This makes a big and long lasting enough blaze to light up a pile of lumber without any fine material.

[squirrellluck]

Next time you are in the woods just look for old rotten pine logs or stumps. Look for the inner heart wood. We call it lighter pine. Burns very hot. Cut into slivers

[Rex in OTZ]

Black Spruce squaw wood and some vasoline treated cotton balls and a striker will lite off pretty quick as we were taught one Late February night in Fairbanks Alaska, sometime round 3 am some of us had a race to see who could get a fire going with flames reaching 3 feet without use if any light source, the fastest time was a minuet 58 seconds mostly by feel. useing a $3 fire starter striker a short stub of hack saw blade, some vasoline treated cotton ball lofted up with some dry bark and dead old twigs on a 8" sqare of aluminum foil to fire bed on deep snow.

[goofyoldfart]

  I'm laughing my A$$ off at some of these replies. you guys just cheered a pi$$ off a goofyoldgrumpy fart. I have used the cotton and Vaseline trick as well as the toilet paper tubes (I melt paraffin in an empty can and then stir a LOT of dryer lint in until it is a soggy mess and pack the tube with it ) soaking the tube with paraffin. when dry put in the back pack, when needed cut a circle of it and light with one cotton ball w/jelly with a magnesium fire starter (mostly for the sparking to start the holocaust) and feed to make fire. doesn't take a lot of room. thanks for the laughs, guys. I needed those, tonight.

[Rex in OTZ]

I had a few dozed up tree piles to burn off so mid winter I kicked out a hole in the snow drift and dropped a couple car tires in there with a few splashes of diesel and a old road fuzee per each pile I had all the fire I wanted for day's, even through a 2 day blizzard one pile was still smouldering on.

[Chewie80]

Not sure if this is an old indian trick or not...but I know when it's wet and you're having a hard time getting a fire started, Keep a few shotgun shells with you for these occasions. You can put the gunpowder from the charge in with your wood pile and whatever your means are for starting the flame(flint&steel, matches...etc) and the gunpowder will get your fire going. Has worked for me on many occasions.

~Chewie

[bilmac]

We used to burn slash piles in the winter. Safest time. It worked best if we put some plastic over a part of the pile before it snowed. We used backpack pumps with a mix of gasoline and diesel. We carried a lit torch and when we wanted to light a pile we laid the torch in front of it and shot a stream of fuel through the flame up under the slash. A few squirts would usually light them up.

[Keith1]

Here at the gun show a guy sometimes sells magnesium shavings that looks like they have been cut with a lath. One dollar a baggie full. That will get a fire going right now.
Regards, Keith

[Pat/Rick]

Pipe Dope. Get small cans of plastic pipe adhesive for pvc/cpvc plumbing. Paint it on the side of the stick and light it.

In winter carry a 30 minute road flare with you. They really don't take up much room in the pack.

remember also that chapstick or other lip balm will burn, smear some on a handkerchief, or shirt tail in an emergency, almost like vaseline and cotton balls.

Yep, egg cartons filled w/ sawdust wood shavings and parafin wax poured on top, all over.

An old baking sheet can be used to make another type of starter. Start layering with wax paper, sawdust melted wax and keep building it up until about 3/4-1 inch thick then cut into cubes.

I myself like petroleum jellied cotton balls. You can stuff alot of them in an old plastic spice bottle.

Stay warm!

[Pulp]

Around my neck of the woods we call them pine knots.  In deer camp, if you didn't bring a deer in, you'd better bring in some pine knots.

Macadamia nuts, in addition to being good to eat, will burn for a long time.  You can boil a cup of water with one macadamia nut.  All nuts burn very well, but macadamias will burn the longest.  Plus they are a very good energy food to carry in your pack.

'Course you have to have something to light the macadamia with.

[loneviking]

Pine knots and fat wood are two different things.  Out west here, I'll cut into a  dead, standing Pinyon and this yellow, fat like junk starts to run all over the saw.  Really, it looks like liquid beef fat.  That's when I grab a can and try to get all that I can. After the tree is cut, I mark it with a red 'X', and let it sit for an hour or so till the fat has somewhat solidified.  I use the wood from these trees for firestarting and it's like putting kerosene to a match!  The stuff in the can I soak cotton balls, or better yet, dryer lint in and use it for starting fires as well. If you find some of this fatwood, use very small pieces as this stuff burns really, really hot.

BTW, if you go to the dollar store and buy a container of hair pomade, you can roll the cotton balls in that stuff and it burns just as good as vaseline.

[Pat/Rick]

Pine knots, lighter knots, fat wood, all sound kind of close to the same thing. What your looking for is a turpentine smell right? In the PNW we kick or cut into rotting fir stumps and get into chunks that has haved the resins collect in them, giving off a turpentine smell, they are very good for getting wet/damp wood burning.

[loneviking]

Pine knots, lighter knots, fat wood, all sound kind of close to the same thing. What your looking for is a turpentine smell right? In the PNW we kick or cut into rotting fir stumps and get into chunks that has haved the resins collect in them, giving off a turpentine smell, they are very good for getting wet/damp wood burning.

Yeah, anything with the turpentine smell will be a good firestarter.  And yes, look to the stumps of trees that died and were left standing.

[Peshtigo71]

Pat/Rick, Is it safe to presume that using the chapstick/shirttail method one should take the shirt off before lighting?      Peshtigo

[Pat/Rick]

Might not have to take the shirt off. One could probably just pull it out and tear off a piece of the tail.