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Wood for Flint Fire Starter
- Thread starter B. Miller
- Start date
What you ar probably thinking about is mayawood. I'm waiting on some to come in. Email me and I'll try to give you the links to get some.
Kris
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kwheeler3644@cs.com
Kris
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kwheeler3644@cs.com
- Joined
- Nov 29, 1999
- Messages
- 632
Hi B. Miller,
If you live in Tacoma.... head into the mountains and get some pitch wood.... It is all over that North Cascade range.
Best,
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Greg Davenport
Simply Survival's Wilderness Survival Forum
Simply Survival's Web Page
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?
If you live in Tacoma.... head into the mountains and get some pitch wood.... It is all over that North Cascade range.
Best,
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Greg Davenport
Simply Survival's Wilderness Survival Forum
Simply Survival's Web Page
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?
- Joined
- Oct 8, 1998
- Messages
- 5,403
The wood you are speaking of is pitchwood also known as fatwood and mayawood.
There is a Swedish company that sells the mayawood variety.
In the States, you can find fatwood at your hardware store or department store sometimes sold as a firestarter for fireplaces and grills and campfires. I found one bundle marketed by Northland, and another marketed by Degan. The instructions say to use a couple sticks to light a fire, light one end with a match, away you go. Of course, small bits can be shaved/scraped off and they will take a spark from a metal match very well. then, with a little practice...
Pitchwood is wood that has an unusually high concentration of pitch. There may be other ways it forms, but I am to understand when a tree is broken above the stump or cut down, the roots continue to send pitch up, enough pich for the whole tree, and it then collects in the wood that is remaining. For instance, there is a tree, cut off about 12' up, a couple blocks from my house, and the wood that is left is bursting with sap, the sap is coming out everywhere on the surface, like water from a sponge almost.
Piet, aka Bagheera, told me about a cool idea, making a key fob out of pitchwood, then you can take it with you.
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Thank you,
Marion David Poff aka Eye, Cd'A ID, USA mdpoff@hotmail.com
My Talonite Resource Page, nearly exhaustive!!
My Fire Page, artificial flint and index of information.
"Many are blinded by name and reputation, few see the truth" Lao Tzu
There is a Swedish company that sells the mayawood variety.
In the States, you can find fatwood at your hardware store or department store sometimes sold as a firestarter for fireplaces and grills and campfires. I found one bundle marketed by Northland, and another marketed by Degan. The instructions say to use a couple sticks to light a fire, light one end with a match, away you go. Of course, small bits can be shaved/scraped off and they will take a spark from a metal match very well. then, with a little practice...
Pitchwood is wood that has an unusually high concentration of pitch. There may be other ways it forms, but I am to understand when a tree is broken above the stump or cut down, the roots continue to send pitch up, enough pich for the whole tree, and it then collects in the wood that is remaining. For instance, there is a tree, cut off about 12' up, a couple blocks from my house, and the wood that is left is bursting with sap, the sap is coming out everywhere on the surface, like water from a sponge almost.
Piet, aka Bagheera, told me about a cool idea, making a key fob out of pitchwood, then you can take it with you.
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Thank you,
Marion David Poff aka Eye, Cd'A ID, USA mdpoff@hotmail.com
My Talonite Resource Page, nearly exhaustive!!
My Fire Page, artificial flint and index of information.
"Many are blinded by name and reputation, few see the truth" Lao Tzu
If you're a city slicker, take some cotton balls and soak them with melted candle wax. Stuff the balls in 35mm plastic film cannisters, and carry them in your pack. When you want to start a fire, produce a pile of dry wood shavings with your trusty knife atop one cotton ball and light it up. Flint and steel works, but it's a bear. Matches work better if also carried in plastic cans.
B. Miller,
email me your address (if you're in the U.S.) and I will send you some. I have tons of this stuff on our farm and will send you a few pieces. We call them 'pine knots' and all you have to do is make a fuzz stick out of a small piece and throw sparks from your ferrocium rod on it...and you have fire.
Jeff
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Randall's Adventure & Training
jeff@jungletraining.com
email me your address (if you're in the U.S.) and I will send you some. I have tons of this stuff on our farm and will send you a few pieces. We call them 'pine knots' and all you have to do is make a fuzz stick out of a small piece and throw sparks from your ferrocium rod on it...and you have fire.
Jeff
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Randall's Adventure & Training
jeff@jungletraining.com
As an added note to my above post, when you make fuzz sticks from 'lighter' pine make them extremely fine instead of the standard old fuzz stick we're all use to using. This will catch the spark from your rod much better.
Something else, most folks use a ferrocium rod and knife the wrong way in my opinion. They strike the knife (or other tool)along the rod. The best way I've found is to rip the rod backwards and upwards away from the tinder while holding the knife, or other tool, steady. This way you don't hit the tinder with the tool you're using.
Another misconecption is that stainless steel will not work with a ferrocium rod, not only will hardened stainless work, but quartz, flint, and a whole host of other hard rocks make good tools to strike ferrocium with.
Now, with that said, true flint and steel is a different beast than ferrocium. The cotton balls that Bud mentioned is the premier tinder for ferrocium rods in my opinion, however I like to soak them in Vaseline. They're useless on true flint and steel (flint rock from the ground and steel) since the sparks porduced from real flint and steel is much cooler than ferrocium sparks. I've practiced and used true flint and steel on many occasions and found that the media must be charred to catch cooler sparks. I believe true flint and steel is the best fire starting teacher anyone can have since it covers everything required to produce fire. Learn this and the rest of the fire making methods come much easier, including friction.
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Randall's Adventure & Training
jeff@jungletraining.com
[This message has been edited by JeffRandall (edited 06-10-2000).]
Something else, most folks use a ferrocium rod and knife the wrong way in my opinion. They strike the knife (or other tool)along the rod. The best way I've found is to rip the rod backwards and upwards away from the tinder while holding the knife, or other tool, steady. This way you don't hit the tinder with the tool you're using.
Another misconecption is that stainless steel will not work with a ferrocium rod, not only will hardened stainless work, but quartz, flint, and a whole host of other hard rocks make good tools to strike ferrocium with.
Now, with that said, true flint and steel is a different beast than ferrocium. The cotton balls that Bud mentioned is the premier tinder for ferrocium rods in my opinion, however I like to soak them in Vaseline. They're useless on true flint and steel (flint rock from the ground and steel) since the sparks porduced from real flint and steel is much cooler than ferrocium sparks. I've practiced and used true flint and steel on many occasions and found that the media must be charred to catch cooler sparks. I believe true flint and steel is the best fire starting teacher anyone can have since it covers everything required to produce fire. Learn this and the rest of the fire making methods come much easier, including friction.
------------------
Randall's Adventure & Training
jeff@jungletraining.com
[This message has been edited by JeffRandall (edited 06-10-2000).]