Lighting your pipe....

[Kentuckywindage]

Just curious as to how you guys light your pipes at rendezvous? Lately ive been using a small square of char cloth and striking it with my flint and steel. Works great. Ive tried using the burning stick thing at camp, but i always have a hard time keeping it going. With the char cloth i get a bright orange ember in the middle of my tobacco.

 

[djnye]

a small piece of tinder fungus works well also. when i go out in public i like to split up a mess of matchstick-sized 6-8" long white cedar sticks. they work great and rarely go out on their own. sometimes i make up bundles of them to give to other campfires. handy when sitting around and jawin'.

take care, daniel

 

[Stumpkiller]

Yep. If there's a fire available a small strip of dried wood. I have some pieces of an old felled utility pole split fine that work great that I carry as tinder, also. The dead twigs on low hemlock branches work, too.

The char cloth if there is not a fire on hand.

 

[ameling]

Another very traditional method is to use a wooden SPILL to light your pipe.

The SPILL is a long tightly curled wood shaving made by a specially designed wood plane. This plane is design just to make that wood shaving. And to make it long and tightly curled. You would then take that SPILL, light the end in your campfire or at the hearth, and then light your pipe.

It is pretty amazing how well that simple spiralled wood shaving will burn - slowly and continuously. They were kept next the the fireplace/hearth in homes and at the inn/tavern - to light pipes and candles - or even to use to light your way as you walked from one room to another. (Like going from the tavern up to your individual room and then light the candle there.) Down in the southwest, they used corn husks the same way. That old saying "light a shuck out of here" referred to lighting a dry twisted corn shuck in the fire or at a candle, and using it to light your way as you walked to the next room or building.

Yes, they are just like having a bunch of dry split wood sticks on hand, but just work so much better. That's why people back then started making and selling them. They even developed a special glass jar to sit on the mantle by the fireplace/hearth to hold them. (Plus being next to the fireplace helped keep the wood shavings from absorbing too much moisture out of the air.)

So you might want to check out SPILLS and the Spill Plane to make them from scrap boards.

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

- who was lucky enough to find a Spill Plane

 

[mmahlock]

Yep. If there's a fire available a small strip of dried wood. I have some pieces of an old felled utility pole split fine that work great that I carry as tinder, also. The dead twigs on low hemlock branches work, too.

The char cloth if there is not a fire on hand.

The Creosote isn't a problem? :hmm: :rotf:

 

[Kentuckywindage]

I was thinking the same thing :shocked2:

 

[Stumpkiller]

You haven't tasted the La Merde du Boeuf Sauvage Tabac that I commonly smoke. ;-) The creosote is hardly noticable.

It's like rind on cheese. You have to get to the inner sections. :wink:

 

[wildeagle]

Me too !! Now , as I am a smoker I thought better of bringing it up. I guess with all of the other nasties I'm putting in my lungs I guess a little creosote ain't going to change the outcome any :redface:

 

[BillinOregon]

Herr Ameling: Vielen Dank for the spill plane information. I googled it and there's all sorts of information on making spills. Fascinating!

 

[Big Sky Trapper]

All depends on how much livations have been around the campfire....hahah

 

[Bryanbrown]

Generally I (sun permitting) I use a burning lens as my first choice. I can collect a crowd of public in nothing flat doing that. Only takes a min or two to get enough ember built up on a sunny day. Sometimes I speed it up with a small bit of charcoal (pea sized) from yesterdays fire in my pipe. The burning lens brings it back to life in two shakes. Tapers (splits) or spills are common if I am in camp or spills in an "urban" or market fair event. Or I have been known to use coal tongs in the tavern, or in a fine gentlmans camp. I also keep both a small char tube and some char cloth, in my feurszeuch (fire things) or tinder box. With flint and steel or burning lens I can generally get my pipe going whenever I feel the need.

Bryan K. Brown
Hesse Kassel Jaeger Korps[url] www.jaegerkorps.org[/url][url] www.gunsmithy.com[/url]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Alle künst ist umsunst wenn ein Engle auf dem Zundlocke brünst.

 

[mudd turtle]

Daniel: I would like to buy a big chunk of skatagan from you if you are willing to part with some. With what you sent me before I have marveled at how fast it will catch a spark. I would like to use some as a supply for emerginces if caught out in the woods here. Let me hear from you and thak you for introducing me to this great material. Mudd Turtle.

 

[chipper]

Just strike your flint and steel into some char cloth. When it takes the spark, place it on top of the pipe tobacco and and draw in. The char will light the pipe quite easily.

Regards
Loyd Shindelbower
Loveland Colorado

 

[Doc Arroyo]

I have a New Mexican lighter. A piece of 1/4" to 3/8" cotton cord stuffed through a 2" long piece of 1/4" brass tube. Char up one end, and pull it into the tube to snuff it out.

 

[BadHeart]

I use a piece of round stock about 18" long and the end is coiled into a little spirel and i put it in the fire and just leave it there and when i need a light i just reach down and pick it up and light my pipe. and put it back in the fire for the next time. Oh, one more thing use a piece of heavy leather to hold it, as it does get a little warm on the fingers.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

around the campfire I use a green piece of hardwood about 1/2" dia sticling into the fire. moving in the sun I use the Doc's method. otherwise I do without.

 

[stfilcek]

Windage, I usually use the fire fungus found around here on birch trees. I find if it is sunny that the burning glass is fast as the flint to get it the fungus going. Otherwise I borrow some fire on a stick from someones camp. The little tongs work well too, for coals. Found that cheap tobacco mellows out a good bit if I put a shot or two of whiskey in a pound and shake it up and let it set for couple weeks. Too cheap to throw it out ya know. Like church wardens too. Trying to do a "pipe stone" red pipe but BIG mess. with the red dust.