I have a tendency to over-cook my char cloth and wind up with something too fragile for easy use. It catches a spark readily from either flint and steel of a burning lens, but breaks easily in the hand and burns up pretty quickly. The cloth I've used for this for several years is a thick, fuzz cotton stuff used to wrap your broken leg before the cast is put on, cast padding. It has a tough layer in the middle. I tried a small batch yesterday and cooked it less. I usually cook until the smoke mostly stops, but this time I only cooked until the gasses caught fire. The result was char cloth which was black around the edges but still just scorched tan or brown in the middle. It catches a spark very easily in the black part, burns completely through the lighter parts, but that takes a very long time. I'll be doing it this way.
Just for curiosity sake, I tried baking some in my toaster oven 425° for almost half an hour. It wound up dark brown and seemed to retain all it's original strength, tough stuff. I failed completely at catching a spark from flint and steel with it, though, so I guess it needs to bake some more. I did find it easy to ignite it with a burning glass, however, and that is good stuff. It burned completely through, but even with me blowing on it constantly it took almost 2 minutes to do it. That would make an easy job of starting tinder, so I added some of it to my fire kit for those bright sunny days.
I was out splitting some firewood yesterday and found a big clump of the lining material of a squirrel's winter nest on the ground. I was surprised to find that it is made of shredded cedar bark and chopped up dry leaves. Smart little buggers. I tested some of it with my new char cloth and it will obviously work well as tinder, so I packed a little bag of it to try on my next outing.
I had a thought”¦ I could use this stuff as wadding in my smoothbore and shoot a squirrel with it. Would that be fair? :haha:
Spence
Just for curiosity sake, I tried baking some in my toaster oven 425° for almost half an hour. It wound up dark brown and seemed to retain all it's original strength, tough stuff. I failed completely at catching a spark from flint and steel with it, though, so I guess it needs to bake some more. I did find it easy to ignite it with a burning glass, however, and that is good stuff. It burned completely through, but even with me blowing on it constantly it took almost 2 minutes to do it. That would make an easy job of starting tinder, so I added some of it to my fire kit for those bright sunny days.
I was out splitting some firewood yesterday and found a big clump of the lining material of a squirrel's winter nest on the ground. I was surprised to find that it is made of shredded cedar bark and chopped up dry leaves. Smart little buggers. I tested some of it with my new char cloth and it will obviously work well as tinder, so I packed a little bag of it to try on my next outing.
I had a thought”¦ I could use this stuff as wadding in my smoothbore and shoot a squirrel with it. Would that be fair? :haha:
Spence
:haha: 
