Vaseline/cottonwool firelighters.

A question as well as a tip......i read somewhere recently about having cotton wool balls covered in vaseline handy for lighting fires with.

Could'nt find any cotton wool or vaseline so i found a jar of Vic and smeared some over a small ball of toilet tissue and set light to it, the thing burnt for ages when usualy a ball of tissue would usualy burn and go out in seconds. Definately handy for starting a fire if you have some handy.

I guess this is the same with cotton wool balls and vaseline, but could anyone tell me why the vaseline burns so well or advise further on this practise?

Thanks,

CX.

Because vaseline is kinda like "Wax Spread" wouldn't like it my toast though

Seriously though its petrolium jelly, which is a slow burning hydrocarbon.

An oil byproduct basically.

Hope that helped

Thanks for that Jimmy, great explaination! Big help.

CX.

My favorite so far is drier lint and alcohol.
Also for flint, charred denim for flexible 'charcoal' to catch a spark.

what i really like is those round cotton disks that are used to remove make up they pack small and can absorb a ton of fire ribbon. fire ribbon is a gel/paste stuff you get at camping stores and it burns great but more importantly it lights super fast and easy, all you need is a magnesium fire starter and poof you got fire. one note here on Vaseline it will evaporate if not stored in an air tight container so occasionally check on it. one way i found to really get a lot in the cotton is to heat the vaseline to melting and submerge the cotton in it and leave it for a while ( be careful how you do this we are talking about fire starter here so no open flames.)

[edit on 4-2-2007 by wcssar]

Very intresting point about the Vaseline Jelly. I had not considered that angle but definitely will now.

I still want to get around to trying to construct one of those fire pistons.

Thanks for the tips Gentlemen.
Orangetom

Fire lighters are great things and good to have in your 24 hour pack (that is what search and rescue calls its bail out bag.), but you need to practice lighting fire no just once but many times and not with good tinder. Here is the test we use in SAR, take a wet branch about one and a half inch diameter, you know the black slimy ones under the leaves, now bend it hard, if it did not break that is your fire. You must make a fire with that branch and nothing else except what ever fire striker you carry on your person. It’s not really hard, cut away the wet black slimy stuff and you will find dry wood under it , make shavings but cutting very thin slices down the branch, slice these length wise and this your tinder, cut the branch up into thin strips and light your fire . This is just a short description of the process but it can be done with practice as I am sure most people who go into the woods regularly already know.

I was in the woods with some of my family and demonstrated to my daughter how to start fire with a flint and steel and some of the flaky bits from birch bark.

This stuff is great... just a few minutes collecting it from the side of trees, place it on the ground and within 8 strikes i had fire!

No chemicals, no fumes, just natural fire started in seconds

You can also use many different types of fungus... Cramp Balls which grow on trees is also a very reliable method i have experimented with

One of the other things i like about this is i can find it in all of the Forrest's i visit and therefore do not have to carry artificial tinder around with me.

None the less Cotton wall balls and vaseline is a method i have heard to be very reliable and useful piece of knowledge to keep stored in the old grey nugget

my favourite military shoepolish and crackerbread, both standard military issue in Finnish army... beware napalm is childplay compared to this

Depending on where you live, a great firestarter is white or "paper" birch. The bark of this tree contains so much natural oil that a piece that has been soaking for days in water will still light very quickly and easily.
One note, if you do use the bark, try to take the ones that are on the ground around the tree. If you peel it off the tree, you will end up killing the tree.

turpentine from pine trees is a tremendous source of fuel.
I once chucked a small dead pine tree onto our fire to demonstrate it's flamability, well, let's just say that it works VERY well.

Also, if you find a deserted bird nest, that makes for a nice tinderbox.

Depending on where you live, a great firestarter is white or "paper" birch. The bark of this tree contains so much natural oil that a piece that has been soaking for days in water will still light very quickly and easily.

If you peel it off the tree, you will end up killing the tree.

Sorry... i should have mentioned this my previous post...

When im removing the Birch flakes from the bark i remove only a tiny amount from a few tree's to limit any damage that may be caused. I certainly do not strip the bark... just the flaky peelings that curl and drop off.

And for tinder i find that i need no more than a small handful.