Fire starters? 🔥 🔥

[coloradoclyde]

I make my own Lucifer matches.....

There's nothing quite like playing with molten sulfur....until it ignites... :shocked2: :haha:

 

[dsayer]

According to the Historical Accuracy thread, I've spent my time squarely in level 1 and, especially since joining this site, am just starting to venture into level 2 muzzleloading.

Stop messing around and dive in. It's the best way to learn...

:haha: You're probably right. If you ask my wife, she'd say my persona would need to include a wife that died a tragic death... I've got some work to do.

 

[dsayer]

matches were available even before percussion caps were, and they weren't the flimsy ones like the strike on box sort to be had nowadays.
obviously Boone didn't have them during his voyaging but I'll say that Crockett had access to them. likely a bit costly back then though. I have a screw-lid container to carry strike anywhere that I've dipped in melted wax I take - or took I should add since I no longer trek - a bic may fail but these won't.

Good idea and much cheaper than storm proof matches!

 

[Black Hand]

If you choose to carry matches in the mistaken belief of equivalence (modern matches are not the same as period Lucifers), you are still relying on a crutch.

Learn the skill...

 

[coloradoclyde]

If you choose to carry matches in the mistaken belief of equivalence (modern matches are not the same as period Lucifers), you are still relying on a crutch.

Learn the skill...

:thumbsup: ...You still need to know how to use a flint and steel to use a Lucifer match.

Here's a demo video..

https://youtu.be/9qzfol8OMCI

 

[Nativearizonan]

Nice video on the sulphur matches!

:thumbsup:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I carry sulfur matches in several of my kits....
If you use fatwood splints to make the matches you have a double whammy fire starter...Burning sulfur is very hard to extinguish.

 

[George]

...You still need to know how to use a flint and steel to use a Lucifer match.

Lucifer matches were early friction matches, not just wood slivers dipped in sulfur.

Spence

 

[coloradoclyde]

Thanks for the correction, I had I feeling I was in error.......

It's been a long day....

 

[Loyalist Dave]

PEEPS! (well OK the word probably should be done in yellow thus PEEPS!, but it washes out on a white or gray, computer screen.)

The marshmallow yellow duckling or baby rabbit candies....let them dry out, and they work as well or better than boy scout DIY dryer-lint-egg carton fire starters. :wink:

It is post-Easter 2018, and you've probably got some of them just sitting around in a package, since nobody eats those silly things....

:haha: :haha: :haha:

But seriously, as a member of The Order of The Singed Eyebrow since 1977..., I can recommend that you learn three methods of making fire in a "primitive" fashion...flint & steel, burning glass, and bow & spindle. Two additional methods are battery and steel wool and polished soda can and sun , but these don't really have a place in our discussion.

I'd say get a good fire striker set, and start with charred cloth. DIY your own by getting an empty steel container that once held loose tea, OR you can buy (my Scottish genes shudder at the thought) a new, plain, pint, paint can with a lid. Cut small squares of pure linen or pure cotton cloth, put them in the tin or the paint can, and put the lid on. Take a nail and poke a hole in the center of the lid, then put the closed tin on the campfire. Smoke will come from the hole, and let it sit there about 15 minutes, maybe more, then remove from the fire and allow to cool. Then, open and you'll have a can full of charred cloth.

Once you've mastered using the charred cloth, then work on using more natural materials such as fungus from trees and other items. As Clyde and others have said, a candle nub is great for ensuring you get that fire going. So is fatwood..., so are both combined! As for mastery, just use it a lot. Not only for fires, but also for lighting your pipe if you smoke.

Burning glass is pretty simple after you master flint & steel. Not every "lens" will work btw. I harvested some lenses from a busted up pair of binoculars..., some of the lenses would not concentrate the light enough to get the temperature to start a burn.

Bow & Spindle..., that too takes some time, and practice learning what woods to use, proper bow length, and proper technique. It's not my favorite but I think I was first taught by a not-so-well-informed-camp-counselor. Luckily, there are some reference materials on the internet to show you some tips to aid you in mastery.

Fire starting is one of those frontier skills that you really should have "under your belt" (pardon the pun) as you never know when a jaunt in the woods will unexpectedly need a heat source in a hurry.

LD

 

[Blizzard of '93]

actually I usually carry a fire tube and my home-made 'lucifers', but do have and use a flint/steel.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Here is an interest read about matches....
http://www.historyofmatches.com/matches-history/history-of-matches/

 

[crockett]

For those who haven't used a magnifying glass or burning lens, the lens has a much more rounded convex and this better concentrates the light. You move the dot of light away from the char until only a pinpoint of light is there- you can get an ember glowing in 3-4 seconds on char. I use a tube with cotton cord and a lens is the fastest (light a pipe, etc.)
After that- flint and steel and char cloth plus chopped up, shredded jute.
On the bow and drill- according to others on this form- only PC is Alaska and a few other places. Most NDN's used a long drill spun by hand.
I guess all those Boy Scout bow & drill sessions weren't pc.

 

[Nativearizonan]

The first fuel lighter:

Döbereiner's lamp, also called a "tinderbox" ("Feuerzeug"), is a lighter invented in 1823 by the German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner; the lighter is based on the Fürstenberger lighter and was in production until ca. 1880. In the jar, similar to the Kipp's apparatus, zinc metal reacts with dilute sulfuric acid to produce hydrogen gas. When a valve is opened, a jet of hydrogen is released onto a platinum sponge. The sponge catalyzes reaction with atmospheric oxygen, which heats the catalyst and ignites the hydrogen, producing a gentle flame.

It was commercialized for lighting fires and pipes. It's said that in 1820s over a million of the "tinderboxes" was sold

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Döbereiner's_lamp

Perhaps these were more popular than matches, at least they were commercially produced slightly earlier than self lighting matches.

 

[tenngun]

The British taxed matches in India. Everybody needs fire so it was a fair tax to everyone. Still the poor, mostly native Indians , didn’t want to pay. So they kept their steels. England didnt like that and went so far as to outlaw steels. About fifty years before this old guy from the colony of Pennsylvania who’s name was frank or franks or Franklin or something like that, said it wasn’t smart to make laws you couldn’t enforce. The Brits didn’t listen then, and they didn’t think about it fifty years later. :haha:
Two facts do stand out, a flint and steel is easy to master and when you master it you may not want anything else.
A person who grew up only useing it,like the Indians, matches just weren’t that appealing.
I do doubt vary many American frontiersman learned how to use a fire drill. In absence of a steel a one might still have a gun, knife or some sort of axe.
Keep in mind that at any time only a hand full of people were ever ”˜beyond the pale’. People, even on the frontier, were rarely beyond help if things went south. Few people were ever more then a days walk from help, and restock.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I would also suggest again to try to attend a local rendezvous and see someone start a fire with flint and steel. Just ask and I'll bet someone will give you a quick lesson. At least for me, there is nothing like hands on experience to learn something like that. I can read books and watch videos etc, but in the end the first hand experience generally is the best.

I haven't started a flint and steel fire for a number of years, but I guess I need to pull out my stuff and start doing it again to impress my grandsons with a skill they will probably try and then burn something down. :redface:

 

[Nativearizonan]

There are a lot of people raised these days that can't start a fire even if they have matches, unless they have a ton of accelerant to pour on their wood/charcoal. They just don't have any training or background in it. No fireplaces or wood stoves in the house when they grew up, and little if any family camping experience to see their dad start a fire.

When I was a kid, the flint and steel wasn't pushed on me, but being able to light a fire certainly was, and if it took more than one match, you heard about it.

 

[tenngun]

I’ve said this before on other threads and have been laughed at before, but it’s something I’m kinda convinced of.
In colonial times we get letters where people visiting the colonies and describing how people carried a fire kit. Later we see this as people visit the frontier, some comment on people with a fire kit.
Why would someone comment on something that should be a normal skill?
I THINK that most people could build a fire from a coal, but most people didn’t know how to start a fire. Most people lived close enough so if the home fire went out you could go and borrow a coal.
You can bank a fire and cook outside but I bet few people spent any time far from a glowing coal. So to see people walking around with their own fire kit, and the knowledge to use it was out of the ordinary and worth a comment to people back home.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Interesting observation. I had never thought about that possibility, but if you lived in a village or town, someone probably always had a fire going. If you were a farmer with neighbors, the chances are they were less than a mile away.

Someone on the unsettled frontier, probably knew how to start of fire though.

 

[tenngun]

In 1830 it was the middle of the mountain man era. There were about fourteen million American. Ok, at that time there was a lot of frontier life going on besides the mountain men. Santa Fe trail, Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin were still frontier areas, and states like Missouri were still mostly empty. Still out of that twelve million I bet you would be hard pressed to find a hundred thousand that were more then a mile or two from another house. Most much less. Most people lived in a rural setting instead of in town, but even there people tend to clump. There are mostly economic reasons for this, it’s no good having a farm if you waste too much time and effort sending your produce to a market. Likewise it makes no sense to make an effort to buy the produce of one farm.
Then we like to imagine the frontiersmen as a master of all the trades he needs to live, when in truthpeople bought what they could.