Kentucky Armory Club

Tinder

You will need a ferro rod or some other source of spark
You will need to source and scrounge some items from around the house

Tinder comes in many forms from charred material to flammable liquid, man made, to natural. It is used to catch a spark and hold it as an ember or open flame.

For this challenge you with gather 5 different types of tinder and use your ferro rod to ignite them. 1 of the materials should be natural , an item that could be replenished from nature. Its a good idea to practice igniting every item you come across that appears to be good for tinder, testing and practicing will only expand the possibility and your skill.

For mine I have done
Cotton string
Magnesium
Dryer lint
Toilet paper
Fat wood

this is never as easy as it looks

All right. For my 5 items I chose dryer lint, cotton balls, birch bark, magnesium, regular paper, and paper towels...

My observations,

1. Dryer lint was by far the easiest material to light and it burned at a slow enough pace to allow time to build up a fire.
2. Cotton balls lit very easily but burned very quickly. I soaked one in Murray's pomade and it was still able to be lit easy with the striker but burned at a much slower pace allowing time to get more fuel on the fire.
3. Paper towel lit simple enough, took a couple more stikes on the steel than did the lint or the cotton. It burned well but burns faster than I like.
4. Birch bark, good fuel but it took time to dry out first since it has been wet outside. I stuck it in my sweatshirt pocket while I worked allowing it time to dry. It took a little work to get lit but once lit it burned at a very reasonable pace to allow time to build a better fire. I did have to play with how I was lighting it and get a little more air to it than the other sources.
5. Regular paper, this shit was a pain to light with the striker, I ended up using a bit of the magnesium to help get it burning. Once burning it burns sporadic and quick and is not one of my favorite.
6. Magnesium, burns quick, burns hot, pain in the ass to deal with in the wind.. Still fun to play with!!!!!

Something else I noticed with this, the striker on the mag bar is not that good. I have only used it a few times and it is already wearing out. Next time I will not buy the cheap chinese mag bar, instead I have a US made DOAN bar on order..

Great, my hope is that these challenges would not only force us to use our gear but to help us identify what particular piece of gear best suits us. I have a Mag bar but the only time I use it is when doing challenges such as this or showing people how to use it. Ill take a simple Ferro rod any day, buy it as a blank and either make my own handle or just go without a handle. My test showed me that Fat wood was the best tinder I tested, the way I prepped it allowed it to catch a spark on the first strike and it burned so long I actually snuffed it out so I could continue with my test of other tinder.

Oh I am having fun with this one! Thanks SoL.
Six experimental tinders:

- Steel wool
- Citrus peel
- Bark and twig shavings twisted from a pencil sharpener [That's a trick I learned from Chopper Doc, BTW]
- Candle wax shavings
- Paper towel sprayed with a little cooking oil. This is what I use to start my grill, so I know it works.
- Dryer lint. Started many a campfire with dryer lint, and the burning cat hair scent does eventually go away

Observations:

The Coleman magnesium bar throws a strong spark, but as Big C says, it wears out quickly. Need a beefier ferro rod going forward. I'm convinced that citrus peel is an internet myth. Paraffin is not the wonder tinder some make it out to be, but steel wool is amazing stuff! The Ka-Bar Becker Necker she's just NASCAR awesome!

I made a video. Hope you like Concrete Blonde.

[youtube]4EbTJ-2Vnso[/youtube]

- Keith

I just got some new strikers in, one if them says good for 10,000 strikes...

Any suggestions as to where I might locate and procure some fatwood? One of my tries was on some wood shavings that I chopped into very fine slivers, as in as thin as I could get them, it worked very well catching on the 2nd spark and smoldering for some time afterwards. I was really surprised that it worked as well as it did.

Kadnine , Thanks for the Video! Video is great because it shows just what your doing. I have a few suggestions. Switch hand, and pull the fire steel rather then push the knife, it will keep ya from over striking and blowing the tinder away, it also focuses the spark to one small area. When you use wood, Use the back of the knife , the sharp edge you strike the rod with to shave very small ribbons of wood, they will look just like steel wool only made of wood when done right.

Finding fatwood
http://www.kentuckyarmoryclub.com/viewt ... p?f=4&t=66

Yeah. I was shaving magnesium with the sharp edge, striking with the back side. I'll have to practice the pull strike technique you described. Definitely had trouble sparking at center mass.

- Keith

Sounds fun. I come up with from left to right dryer lint, petroleum jelly cotton ball, wax cotton ball, a wet fire out of my ESEE Laser Strike handle and a plain cotton ball. I used the included ESEE fire steel and knife.


All took to fire within 2 strikes mostly one. This is the dryer lint it burnt fast so I too it as a single picture.

Next the other 4.

They all burnt longer than the dryer lint. The next to go out was the plain cotton ball.

Then it was the waxed cotton ball and the petroleum jelly ball. The PJ was much hotter and a bigger fire.

In the end the petroleum jelly soaked cotton ball was the longest lasting by almost double the time at 4.5 minutes.

Thanks SOL great idea.

Used the Bear Grylls again.
Tinder was fluffed up q tips,
vaseliine on a cotton ball,
toilet paper,
paper,
and cardboard.

The cardboard wasn't as hard to light as I would have thought and the TP was harder than I would have thought.

This challenge got me to thinking as to whether I could use it with the VARGO stove. So yesterday I started searching around the house for enough wood to keep the stove burning for a bit to try and cook some lunch on it. I used the cup from my Swiss surplus cooking set and put some ramen in with water, set the stove up and got out some dryer lint and another cotton ball soaked in pomade..

I started a fire in the stove with the dryer lint but it burned to fast to get the rest of the tinder good and lit so I used the cotton ball and got it lit then built a nice little fire that I was able to keep going for a good 30 or so minutes in the stove which was plenty of time to have a good lunch of beef ramen..

If I can get my video software working I will try to post a video..

Instead of a magnesium bar this time I used a Coghlans ferro rod that I have had for years and it holds up a lot better than the rod attached to the mag bar..

Wondering how I could possibly turn this into a kids science fair project.. The daughter has to have a project and I think this would be pretty cool if I knew how to word the hypothesis and everything..

Oh! This has scientific method written all over it!

1) Pose a question, the simpler the better (Example, "Why does X tinder light under a spark?")
2) Make a hypothesis (Example, "It is my hypothesis that X tinder lights under a spark because it is more dry and therefore more flammable than other, more damp types of tinder.")
3) Prediction (Example, "It is my prediction that dry [type X] tinder will ignite faster and with fewer sparks than damp [type Y] tinder.")
4) Experiment ("I will try and spark both X and Y tinders and see which one ignites first.")
5) Analysis of results/Conclusion (Example, "My analysis reveals that tinder X ignited first and easier than tinder Y. [Or, Tinder Y was first and easier.] So, it is my conclusion that X tinder indeed supports my hypothesis [Or, Y tinder does not support my hypothesis.]")

Record the whole process, and present to the Almighty Science Fair Judges and be proclaimed Queen of the Awesome! Love this idea!

- Keith

Oh! And I'm short of funds for new toys right now, but I am interested in purchasing a stought, beefy ferro rod from you soon.

BIGC wrote:Wondering how I could possibly turn this into a kids science fair project.. The daughter has to have a project and I think this would be pretty cool if I knew how to word the hypothesis and everything..

Make moonshine! Best science fair project EVER!

Okay, did this early today with my son. He was very excited to be making fire!

1. Wood shavings
2. Cotton ball soaked in Vaseline
3. steel wool
4. paper
5. dryer lint

We took out the Bear Grylls fire rod and steel fro my EDC kit. The rod was not too bad, but man the steel made the tiniest little sparks. I could not let the boy use the knife, but I set the edge of the Mora knife too it and we got some action.

First up was shavings from some random sticks we found in the yard made with the pencil sharpener. The boy had a great time making these. we had plenty. It actually took a little effort to get these to smoulder, as stuff in the yard was still damp. After about 10 minutes we gave up trying to get a blaze off of them and added the cotton ball.

The cotton ball with Vaseline was the second easiest to light. With the shavings in the pan we had a nice little blaze going in about 2 minutes and we dumped it into our fire pit filled with small sticks and had a nice blaze in under 5 minutes that we could have added logs to for a sustained fire.

I remember steel wool burning better. Perhaps it as the super fine stuff I had. The only wool I had on hand was the 0000 super fine stuff. It made a nice light show but was out almost as fast as it lit. I could never get a fire started with it.

The paper was the toughest. I frayed up some pieces and the edges of the really soft paper that was packing material in a box. It must have been 15 minutes before we got it burning, and of course it burned really fast. This is not the optimum thing to use, methinks.

The dryer lint was the Holy Grail of fire making in our test. We did it twice with lint. One spark and there was flame. Adding it to tender and then tending as necessary with larger stuff we had a nice blaze in 3 minutes. Very cool (or hot).

As others have mentioned, the rod and steel strikers in the kits are not the best of quality. I got it to work but not sure I want to do this with my knife edge all the time.

Actually got my wife to sit down and do this one saturday night. She also messed around with the try stick some and I've caught her carrying her pocket knife more often lol.
Been looking at the esee fire rod with handle and hollow cavity for tinder for a while now. Kinda pricey but its really thick ferro rod. There is a Bear Grylls fire kit that is orange and has tinder storage too. Is this the one you used Doc?

I think the esee is too expensive IMO... Aurora, Exotac (that polystriker XL i have up has a THICK ferro rod on it), and a few other american made ones that can be had for cheaper and just as good.....

Here is where I get my steels, They have every sort of blank you can imagine at decent prices. You can get them with a lanyard hole or without, you can make your own handle with little effort, or just use the rod.

Anyhow here is the link
http://firesteel.com/FireSteel-Blank-Rods/

justang1997 wrote:Actually got my wife to sit down and do this one saturday night. She also messed around with the try stick some and I've caught her carrying her pocket knife more often lol.
Been looking at the esee fire rod with handle and hollow cavity for tinder for a while now. Kinda pricey but its really thick ferro rod. There is a Bear Grylls fire kit that is orange and has tinder storage too. Is this the one you used Doc?

No, the wife got me a BG pocket survival kit (the Gerber one with the multitool) and it has the rod and steel striker thing in it. Thought I should try it out.

I need to get me some kind of fire steel and try these. I'm all about starting some fires! In a only slightly pyroish kind of way...haha

niceguyr6 wrote:I need to get me some kind of fire steel and try these. I'm all about starting some fires! In a only slightly pyroish kind of way...haha

I have 2 kinds of exotac, DOAN magnesium bars, the bear grylls striker, Swedish firesteels, Tool logic K3's, SOL(survive outdoors longer) Flints, and a few more..............

What kind of price on each and your opinion of them?