first char cloth!!

[fort fireman]

Made my own char cloth on saturday. This was the first stuff I ever made and it was way easier than I thought it would be. :grin: I had a couple old shoe polishing tins for the char tin and had an old altoids tin for keeping the cloth in after it was made. Had an old big piece of flint that wasn't in use for a lock at the time and started making a kit to keep in my shooting bag. Just need to get a good steel striker now.(hint, hint any blacksmiths) :grin: When I get that i can start practicing getting the sparks onto that char cloth. Then maybe start making some fires. I'm usually alot better at fighting them than starting them. :rotf: Thanks for listening/ reading. I was kinda excited and I told my wife about it but she didn't really get it and just kinda gave me that Bless your heart look and said "Oh thats good" . She just doesn't understand. :grin: ANDY

 

[tg]

""Oh thats good" .

My wife quite often starts out with the "Oh!"
but finished quite differently :shocked2: good going it is fun to find local sources of tinder when playing around with flint and steel and don't forget the bandaids.

 

[renovato]

Congrats on the char! It's a good feeling being able to strike a fire anywhere. I can make char with the best of them, but I still have a hard time getting a decent spark. Takes a lot of practice! TG is sure right about the bandaids. Keep them handy when you practice, cuz yer gonna cut yerself a bunch o' times! I sure do. :rotf:

 

[GreyWhiskers]

I went to a rendezvous this weekend and I tried the firestarting for the first time. Was so much fun that I made char cloth when I got home. When When I showed my wife how I could have a fire going in less than 15 seconds she made some comment about a bic lighter. :hmm:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Sometimes you just have to " bite the bullet" to learn some of these skills. I got a flint and steel kit to start fires, and spent a little time learning how to get sparks, but I was inconsistent. So, when my club put on a demonstration over a long weekend at a local park, I volunteered to demonstrate fire starting for the visitors. We were suppose to switch tasks every two hours, but somehow no one showed up, and the club president was no where in sight. ( Funny how that works, isn't it?) So, i kept on making fires. I was using a tree stump to elevate the material up so visitors could see what I was doing, and giving my back a break, too. The stump was wet, from lots of rain, but by the end of the first day, I had a fire going in the end grain, and had to flip the stump over to put the burning end into the mud underneath.

I thought we would at least switch for the second day, but no one wanted to show fire starting, so I did it the next day. I figure I started more than 200 fires with flint and steel those two days, using char cloth, and then tinder, to get flames. That is 10 fires per hour, for more than 12 hours each day, with some time out for potty breaks, and getting something to eat.

I can start a fire with flint and steel now in my sleep! My friend, Don, drafted me to help teach girl scouts at camp how to start fires with flint, and we put on a seminar every Sunday morning for 5 weeks one July. I never got an ember on my first strike- second, but not first- but Don did once, in front of a troop of scouts, and their scoutmaster. He had fire blowing on the charcloth ember in his tinder ONCE, and had a fire going in less than 10 seconds. The Scout master muttered, " It took me longer to get a fire going at the cabin this morning using lighter fluid and a lighter!" Don knew how Lucky he was, and laughed with me. Talk about being the MOUNTAIN MAN for these kids! We managed to get the girls to start a fire with flint and steel before they left, all except a little 3 year old who just didn't have enough strength to hold the flint chard tight enough to get sparks. But, once we got sparks into her charcloth, she blew up her own fire. I think she was the happiest kid there. If you learn these skills, offer to teach the kids at the Scouts and 4-H programs around you. You will be able to influence a new generation of kids about our sport, and teach them a skill they won't be able to forget. They may never use it, but they won't forget it, either. :thumbsup:

 

[ameling]

Yes, I've taught many kids to start a fire with flint/steel over the years. But you really do need to get those boys away from that tough/punk/flaky attitude and to concentrate on what they are doing. it's too easy for them to not pay attention, or to get frustrated without INSTANT results. The girls always seem to pay attention better, and learn the skill faster - which then ... complicates ... teaching the boys.

And they DO remember the experience.

Just have patience until the kids get past that "hit this against that and get instant fire" stage.


Now if only we could find some credible documentation for the use of charcloath before the 1850's. They knew the principle of it all the way back to the matchlock days of the 1600's and 1500's. But they just never specifically wrote down using "charcloth" before the mid 1800's - using whatever term they wanted to. They wrote about using charred wood, charred mushroons/fungus, and tinder fungus. They even wrote about using rags to form up their "bird's nest" tinder bundle for fire starting. Just not using/making charred clothe. Kind of funny how that little "detail" was missed - or only came into use pretty late into the 1800's.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[6pounder]

Yes, making char can be fun let alone starting a fire. I made some char for a shooting comp and may have made the mistake of storing it in a plastic bag, so when it came time to do the fire lighting things did not go to well. But at lest everyone was on the same level and it just took a little longer to make fire. Next time I will do things diffrently so it will be right. But practice does help and yes even the best of us have cut fingers so keep those bandaids close. My wife's thought :youcrazy: on the subject was recieved well to :haha:

 

[fort fireman]

Question on the tinder fungus. Do you have to char it also in the same manner as the cloth or just use it right of the tree as is. The reason I ask is the stuff right off the tree seems pretty damp ,even if its been dry for some time. Then again maybe I've been looking at the wrong fungus, I don't know. What does godd tinder fungus look like?

 

[ameling]

Question on the tinder fungus. Do you have to char it also in the same manner as the cloth or just use it right of the tree as is. The reason I ask is the stuff right off the tree seems pretty damp ,even if its been dry for some time. Then again maybe I've been looking at the wrong fungus, I don't know. What does godd tinder fungus look like?

True tinder fungus (innonotus obliquus) is amazing stuff. It does not need any preparation before using it. You can cut/break some off of a paper Birch tree, and have it catch sparks right away! The outside is black hard and nobby/spiky. But it is the inside you use - that orangish parts, sometimes with some white specks. And the FRESH stuff seems to work better than stuff that has been cut off of the tree for a while.

The Europeans were amazed when they saw the Indians using it. And those Indians quickly shifted over to using Steel Strikers traded from the Europeans for fire starting. Besides the fire drill, they had been using Iron Pyrite and Flint for sparks. But a steel striker works many times better.

The only real limitation of Tinder Fungus is the range of where it grows. You mostly find it on the Paper Birch trees, but it does also grow on other birch trees as well as a few other tree species.

There is also a fungus that grows on Pine trees that is kind of similar in how it catches a spark. Sort of like a "puff ball". It will also catch a spark as-is without any charring or prior preparation.

But you do need to adjust your fire starting method when using tinder fungus instead of charcloth. It will be very much like taking a small live coal from an existing fire, and then using it to start another one. The heat from the coal is more concentrated and longer lasting than when using charcloth - which spreads out faster throughout your piece of charcloth and builds up heat faster to transfer to your "bird's nest" tinder bundle. So a little ... practice ... helps you learn the different technique needed. Practicing with very small coals from an existing fire really helps.

A web search for Innonotus Obliquus will lead you to various pictures and scientific explainations of it. It is a FUNGUS or Disease that grows on those trees.

Fun stuff.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[ameling]

A few more thoughts on charred fungus.

If you use some Shelf Mushroom or Horse's Hoof fungus, it does need to be charred first to be able to quickly catch a spark from flint/steel. Just cut slices of the softer inside parts, and bake it up just like making charcloth.

But all those hard outside edges of the fungus are still very usefull as-is. Once you do have a spark caught in something, you can place a piece of that other fungus parts next to it. It will take that spark, and it will slowly spread throughout the whole chunk. This greatly extends the time you have to work with your "spark" to start your fire, and it also increases the whole "coal" you are working with in your tinder bundle. Plus it will be hard to put back out. You almost have to drown it.

When working with sparks caught in tinder fungus or any fungus, you have a lot more time to work with it to start your fire - when compared to charcloth which burns up pretty fast. The ... urgency ... is a whole lot less.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands