did they use char cloth

[bpd303]

I would bet that the MM used just about anything that would catch a spark to get their fires going even dryer lint if they had it. :grin:

 

[BrownBear]

One quick insight from wet country-

When looking for dry wood in the wet, don't forget the dry stuff inside most of what you're looking at. Drag that axe off your belt and split the wood to reveal the dry inside. One of the reasons I like a polled axe- Splitting the larger stuff is possible when you use the blade to make wooden wedges, then the poll to drive them home.

Getting at that dry wood inside the splits is key when twigs and such are limp as noodles, they're so wet. You can generate a whole lot of dry kindling in no time with the splits. In our rain country it's perfect for exposing a dry cottonwood "plank" for use with a drill.

 

[necchi]

I think another thing to consider or keep in mind is that in day's of old folks didn't just start looking for things to make fire when they needed to make a fire.

Needing fire was a daily deal,
Items that help make fire was gathered all the time and kept protected as best as possible.
They didn't just walk past dry tinder/nest material or fungus that catches spark well because they didn't need fire at that moment.
Nor have nothing at hand then suddenly decide they need fire and start looking.
Needful things where gathered when they presented themselves.
We live different today, most aren't thinking about stuff needed to build a fire next week.

 

[Rev_William]

I agree Necchi, as much as most people try they are still part of the "instant" generation thinking what they need will be there when they need it, not gathering against future need.

 

[BrownBear]

Kinda like putting money in a savings account, but who does that today? :idunno:

 

[Rick Son]

I'll try to make this short.My brother in law was scouting for elk in Alaska from a plane,for some reason the plane went down on a mountain,he being a religous spiritual man stayed with the pilot and prayed with him till he died in his arms,he also had 3rd degree burns on hands and legs and every thing he had burned up in the plane.

He did have a lighter in his pocket.He remembered seeing a cabin or camp about ten miles back and off he went,made five miles,heard choppers but they could not see him,everything burnable was wet,except the wool coat he had on.
He started pulling the hairs of the coat as much as he could then found something to burn and got a pretty good smokey fire going,the next day the choppers saw the smoke and got him out of there,he had no pain as the nerves were burnt.

He would not stay in the hospital,old fashion feller with no ins.pilots in Alaska don't carry ins either for the most part.The pain came back about three days later with a way high temp after he got home,he by golly went to the hospital then.!!
when i was kid we were tuaght to collect pine pitch,we carry sticks of it as i live just below the Sequoia National Park,an indian gal taught me to find Tule plants that were dry and cary the stick,you can crush them as they are hollow and peel the bark off in strings for burning and also makes a fine bow string.All my cousins and my self carry pine pitch in our trucks,we go up to the mountains and practice with it. Hope this story helps.Papers in Alaska did stories on it right about the time Palin was running for office,a documentory show wanted to put it on tv and magazines and movie folks somehow found where he lived in Idaho,he turned them all down,took him a bit to deal with it.He's a real stand up guy and tougher than burnt sole leather!I'd show the pics but they are pretty tough to look at~Sorry if i went on too much

 

[J D Hoffman]

Sure they did,i use my tore up wore out cotton shirts for char, I'm sure they did too. There is a certain tree fungus that works also, I have used frayed hemp rope to catch sparks, also old rat nests. Try out different things you may be surprised

 

[MOwoodsman]

Ok, here's my $0.02

Yes and no.
Yes they did but only in the home from the research of Keith Burgess. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9CjH7plps More likely char punk wood, horse hoof fungus and other natural, replenishable materials were used. I have used both and charred punk wood, in my opinion, works better than charcloth.

 

[crockett]

The other aspect is how it was done. Today we have a small tin that we call a tinder box and in it we keep flint and steel, some char cloth, tinder, etc. We remove a section of char cloth and the flint and steel and strike so as to get an ember on the char cloth.
I've read accounts of the time where the person writing the account speaks of sending down into the tinder box a shower of sparks. If this is how it was done then an ember was removed, put into the bird's nest, and waved around until it burst into flames.
Such a tinder box could have held a variety of charred materials. As soon as an ember appeared and was removed the lid was put back on to extinguish any other embers. A box like that would have contained only charred material, the flint and steel would have been carried in a small parchment bag, or strike-a-light type bag/pouch. Now. I am interested in the mountain man era so what I've said applies only to that time and place.

 

[MOwoodsman]

Crockett, it would still make sense that they would have used easily replenishable, natural char material instead of expensive and limited fabric. Being out most of the year, fabric would have been used up rather quickly and they could not get more until the next rendezvous. Again, just my $0.02.

 

[tenngun]

2 yards of 45 inch fabric will give you a years worth or close to, but i expect it was worn out shirts that made it in to the tinder boxes. All and all I think they had to us what they found, and diped in to the cloth only when nothing else was at hand.

 

[Black Hand]

Char is easily made from readily-available natural materials such as inner bark, fungus and punky wood (to mention a few). No cloth required (ever).

On a side-note: I tried making charcloth from well-washed (soap & hot water), used cotton flannel cleaning patches in an effort to recycle the cloth (might be equivalent to to the "worn-out shirts" mentioned above).

It was a dismal failure, they shriveled up like synthetic material and would not catch a spark. I suspect the lube had affected the material, and no amount of washing could change this. I fear that an old, greasy shirt would be of little use in making char...

 

[MOwoodsman]

Yes, now. Not 170 years ago. In the 1830's, cloth was very expensive. If he were to be historically accurate, he would go with a natural, easily replenishable material, such as punk wood.

 

[crockett]

Well check out: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23066

Marcy was in the west 25 years before writing the book so he was Pre-1840. He knew a lot of the old mountain men. Therefore, the book is post 1840 but I think a lot of the material is valuable to a degree.
In any event he speaks of starting a fire by moistening a patch and then rubbing black powder into it and then putting it in the pan of a flintlock. The point is...a cloth patch would be used to start a fire. So, expensive or not, cloth was used to start fires.

 

[Black Hand]

Sorry, extending a single instance to the whole is a bit of a stretch. Cloth, while it may have been used on occasion in cities, was extremely expensive compared to other more commonly-used material such as punk. One must also consider availability on the frontier as well as when the account was written (people "remember" things that didn't really happen all the time). It is best to give more weight to 1st-hand journals/accounts rather than secondary/tertiary writings.

 

[tenngun]

My first post on this thread advised to learn other ways to the new guy. Over and over other tinder besides rag tinder is mentioned. To be hc it behoves you to learn them.Rag tinder was well known and I have made lots from an old shirt or h c trousers.But cloth was avalible,the knowledge to make rag tinder well known,to think it stopped at the St louis is a mite unreasonable.To think every MM was using rag tinder every time is even worse. We might compare it to coffee or tea.When a MM had it he drank it, when it ranout he drank water.Any frontirsman learned his land and used what was avalible. His motto was" live and learn or you don't live very long".

 

"Fire making is a simple process with the mountaineers. Their bullet pouches always contain a flint and steel, and sundry pieces of "punk"- a pithy substance found in dead pine trees - or tinder; and pulling a handful of dry grass, which they screw into a nest, they place the lighted punk in this, and, closing the grass over it, wave it in the air, when it soon ignites, and readily kindles the dry sticks forming the foundation of the fire." Ruxton, Life in the Far West

 

[Claude Mathis]

Aimed at no one:

Expensive or not, it would seem that, since cloth items have a shorter usable life than other materials, there would have been a constant supply of worn out cloth items.

I wonder what they did with their old torn up shirts and cloth items that were no longer useable? Did they throw them away, knowing they could make char from them?

 

[crockett]

Yes, I think that and sending a shower of sparks into a tinder box containing material that would hold an ember- those were likely the most common methods. I'm not certain if the way we do it today with char cloth in hand was used. If you aren't careful you can cut yourself.
On the Marcy quote- my intent was to point out that cloth wasn't so valuable as to not be used to start a fire however that Marcy book was intended for greenhorns on their first trip, a seasoned mountain man probably used the bird's nest/punk or tinder box methods. The other thing on the Marcy quote- that single piece of cloth used to start a fire was probably for a group of people- thereby spreading the use and cost of the cloth.

 

[LaBonte]

Sorry but by the 1830's cloth was neither rare (it was the most available trade item) nor expensive (osnaburg for instance sold at $.25-.$75 cents a yard and period onsaburg was nothing like the modern loose weave manure so often found today) - just look at the period trade lists http://user.xmission.com/~drudy/amm.html
- me thinks too many 18th Century re-eanactors are overlaying their "opinions" onto this period based on earlier info.

As for primary 1825-1850 docs see the post above re: Ruxton it is one of only a very, very few from the period and note he mentioned punk and tinder which per Webster's 1828 Dictionary and othe other period references mention tinder as charred linen or cloth.

As for tins to making char cloth -
1) you don't need one - just wrap it around a stick to char it and then put it out - I've used the method for over 40 years and it works
2) The period trade lists are full of pans, pots, etc. that could easily be used for charring cloth.
3) When living as close as I could to the mtn men of the 1820-30's for 11 months (long story) back in the 1970's using only period correct info, my cloth shirts (a very common commodity by the 1830's based on the trade lists and available in both cotton and linen) when worn out worked just fine for char - and yes they were pretty nasty by the time I used them for char. I also used punk and charred wood, but the char cloth was the best starter in my experience and when you're life depends on the best well.....
IMO actual experience trumps the maybe's of other folks.....