Fire Piston from EBPrimitives

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May 24, 2001
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EBPrimitives has put together a nice little fire starting package. The fire piston itself is a mixture of modern and primitive materials, and the design is well thought out. The first picture shows the fire piston (cylinder and plunger, and accessory rod to clean the cylinder, some spare seals, a container of lube, and some of the EB Primitive fire starter biscuits. There’s also an tinder box that EBPrimitives sells separately.

Here's the kit
ebpiston3uy.jpg


The EBPrimitive piston, with its synthetic seal, requires a slightly different method to make a coal. First disassemble the piston. Put a small amount of lube on the end of the plunger (photo 2), and lube the sides of the seal.

Seal lubed up and ready for tinder
eb21ac.jpg


Here it is with tinder and ready to go
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Got coal?
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The tinder boxes from EBPrimitives is a metal cylindrical box with a lid. The box is 1 ½ inches high and 2 inches in diameter and has been colored black. A cross shaped cut has been made in one side, and a wooden base is attached to the bottom. Nifty gadget - runs about 8 bux plus shipping
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Add coal and give a puff or two ...Hola! Fuego!
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all capped up
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I'm very happy with mine. The price was great and shipping was super fast.

Pat
 
So you need the goo to hold the tinder biscuit in situ?

Have you managed to try any true tinder fungus in it?
 
Temper. Yep the way the seals are set up, you have to use the lube to stick the tinder to the plunger. It might be possible to reconfigure the plunger to use an o ring for a seal as used on other fire pistons. I suppose you could also just drop char into the cylinder and dump the coal out of the piston at the end ... I'll give that a try and see if it works.

No , haven't had any opportunity to try other spark materials yet. I'm a bit south of the true tinder fungus area, so I don't have ready access to it. I would expect that charcloth or punkwood would work, though. I may give it a try as my technique improves.

Pat
 
Huh, that seems a little fiddly, I guess none of the pistons are really as simple as we would like. Jeff Wagner has one with an O-Ring now. I have his older model in horn with a cotton string gasket and it works great, but the need for lube on that can be a source of irritation.

Either way, they are great to play with and they really sharpen your coal to flame skills.
 
The whole thing works surprisingly well once you get the method down. I use a knife to lube the end of the plunger - that keeps my fingers clean for the tinder. I would love to try one of Jeff or Darrel's more traditional fire pistons, but they are out of my price range at the moment.

I think with any fire piston you don't have much time to goof around once you get a coal. This is mostly because you such a small ember to start with. With a flint and steel, you can use a big old hunk of char and you have a bit more time to fiddle with getting the thing into a tinder bundle and then into the firelay.

I agree it's great for firestarting skills!

Pat
 
I've been messing with mine for a few days now. I apply the lube into the gasket using the pinky nail of my off hand. I use just enough to make it momentarily sticky after I pull for the ember.

In my view, on the piston stroke, you only want a small to middling piece of char because it lights up without fail at that size. I put a bigger piece in the tinderbox cut out because it is simple to knock the ember onto the bigger char in the box and then puff up a pretty robust ember.

Definitely fun to use. Makes fire building deliberate again compared to scraping sparks all over everything. The piston also seems to encourage fuel efficiency due to its deliberate nature.
 
excellent review and good photos... i've had mine for weeks now, and haven't gotten around to doing this up, and do it justice.

works like a charm :)

bladite
 
Bladlite - Thanks!

Boats,
I have to say these things rock! I fired up three separate coals in about 2 minutes this afternoon. Maybe some of you are that fast with flint and steel, but not me. A ferro rod is of course alot faster, but heck, a bic lighter is alot faster too, if ya really need fast. It is not nearly as nifty, though :)

It still takes me a few strokes to get an ember going. I will have to try smaller pieces of tinder and other materials and see if I can get faster ignition.

Pat
 
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