View Full Version : Back-up fire lighters
Morning All,
Since I saw RM talking about carrying strips of rubber with his lighter as fire lighters I’ve been looking out for an old tyre. But amazingly you just don’t seem to see them around anymore (all though I must admit I haven’t been trying that hard) I did go to a scrappy, but the guy wanted to charge me for an old perished tyre! I’d asked at Kwik Fit in the past if I could cut a bit out of the side wall of an old one but there was some H&S / European directive / COSHH reason why only trained technicians could be in the same room with a tyre!
Anyway whilst getting my wheels balanced on Saturday, I noticed the floor was strewn with the little rubber lumps. They were the ends of valves that get cut off when they change a tyre. I filled my pockets in a minute. They are very compact, light easily and burn hot for about 3 minutes. And they were free!
Andy
Buckshot
18-07-2005, 09:14
Nice one, :)
There are rules coming in / already in place by the EU about old tyres :rolleyes:
I think farmers are going to have problems with thier silage clamps in future - normally they use old tyres to hold the plastic down and keep the air out, stoping the silage rotting too much. IIRC they use the tyres they currently have but can't get any more!
I've tried the old tyre technique, works really well :) I'll have to visit my local Kwikfit !
Cheers
Mark
You can also have a look in the skips after they close.
Hi I thought of that, but Kwik Fit, at least my local one, has all there stuff collected to be disposed of / recycled so you just can’t get your hands on them!
Angus Og
18-07-2005, 09:56
Try an old bicycle inner tube easier to cut up.
I tried one of those, but I couldn't get it to stay alight, it just smoldered.
MagiKelly
18-07-2005, 10:06
I use an inner tube as well and have no problems with it. Much easier to get a hold of too.
I always carry several stips from an old bike inner tube, works a treat if you light it holding it upright so the flames at the bottom, you can then stand it up and put your tinder around it, I'll try and get some pics later, well worth carrying for an emergency... you do need a normal lighter to get it going though.
anthonyyy
18-07-2005, 10:26
What I find strange is that I have come accross quite a few burned-out cars in my time and almost always the tyres remained intact !
Nice one, :)
There are rules coming in / already in place by the EU about old tyres :rolleyes:
not about fire-lighters, but about the use of old tyres
http://www.lowcarbon.co.uk/
EARTHSHIP BRIGHTON
Our first project is to build one of Europe's first Earthships, sited on the south coast near Brighton. Earthship Brighton is being built in Stanmer Park, Earthships are solar powered homes and work spaces, built from a massive waste problem – used tyres. They are buildings that work with the planets natural systems - using the sun's energy and rain to provide heat, power and water. They do not make use of greenhouse gas emitting power stations, nor do they rely on mains water or waste services. This makes them autonomous and therefore cheap to run.
redcollective
22-07-2005, 00:21
Re the Eathship note... this kind of custruction really interests me - try http://www.earthship.org/ for some more info and lots of pictures of wierd and wonderful buildings.
Back on topic - the material the mears fella uses in his video is innertube, not tyre. I can confirm it burns real well. I have found a useful tinder too in the form of these little pads of cotton wool the wife uses for makeup... one shower from the firestick and it lights up a treat. The pads are circular and seem to light completely across the surface creating a big space you can deposit other twigs etc on top without smothering it... must tell the wife some day why those things go missing from the bathroom - I'm sure she wonders. :D
i tried some lint from the dryer, worked a treat and theres always plenty of that around, just needed a small spark and it was done.
i tried it this morning, only problem is my laundry lint is full of dog hair (i have a hairy Leonberger), so it stunk a bit, but hey who cares, it did the job.
Also, i found it only burnt the outter parts of the clump i had, so i guess next time i'll try pulling it about and getting more air in their.
anyone else tried this?
oh hang on, its err, that wet stuff you get, you know, falls from the sky, well its doing that outside right now.. i'm out to play in it woohooo!.............
i've been using the lint from the dryer since andy suggested it a few weeks ago
i cant get through it quick, its very abundant
it works a treat...a one spark wonder!!
it is best to seperate the 'fibres' a little
tends to produce a char rather than be fully consumed by the flame
great stuff tho
And it's free, I like free stuff!
Biddlesby
22-07-2005, 17:44
The best things in life are free.
i tried some lint from the dryer, worked a treat and theres always plenty of that around, just needed a small spark and it was done.
I've tried this but no luck. Perhaps there were some wrong kinds of fibres.
did you try just using a regular lighter to see if it atleast burned ?
Biddlesby
22-07-2005, 23:34
No I didn't. I'll try it now.
[edit] Ok must have been that batch. Took a spark from a firesteel and burned quite well, although left quite a mess behind.
Graham_S
23-07-2005, 00:51
the quality of the lint depends on what's been inthe dryer. some fibers are more flammable than others.
After annoying bike repair shops for 'dead' inner tubes I nicked some elastic bands from the office administrators desk.
They burn well but kick out black smoke that looks a bit worrying to me.
I'm not sure what's worse though inhaling a bit of burning rubber or my 40 a day fag habit :)
"Back on topic - the material the mears fella uses in his video is innertube, not tyre." - Red
Hi Red,
When I read the above it didn't seem right, but I hadn't had a chance to have a look at where I thought I'd seen it. In "Bushcraft" RM said he uses tyre strips as fire lighters. I thought I was loosing it! I had tried inner tube before I found some tyre, but couldn't get it to light. It was perished though, does anyone know if this will affect its burn characteristics. In the perishing process have the volatile components been driven off?
AJB
redcollective
27-07-2005, 09:37
Hi AJB,
I think we may be talking about two different videos? In the Bushcraft Survival DVD he used innertube... it looks like fresh innertube to me (jungle trek episode?). I just watched it again to be sure... "bombproof" in his words.
Someone will have to conduct an experiment - tyre vs innertube vs perished innertube. My money is on the innertube.
Cheers, RED
Hi Red,
That's where we are going wrong, it's Mears contradicting himself, in the book "Bushcraft" he talks about tyres! Equally as bombproof! ;)
At last the Mears is fallible
AJB
MagiKelly
27-07-2005, 11:01
Hi Red,
That's where we are going wrong, it's Mears contradicting himself, in the book "Bushcraft" he talks about tyres! Equally as bombproof! ;)
At last the Mears is fallible
AJB
Maybe not. Given that they are both rubber there is no reason why both will not work. I would expect them both to work it is just the thought of the reinforcing wires in the outer tyre that would put me off.
You cut strips from the tyre wall where the material is thin and I don’t think the wall is reinforced with wire just the tread surface.
The walls of tyres are reinforced, best thing to use from tyres is where they recut the tread pattern in, mostly done on commercial vehicals.When re cutting the tool they use is a motorised u shaped gouge, this gives nice thin, less than a quarter of an inch strip of rubber, normally about 6 inches long. I picked a few up from outside a commercial garage yard. I suppose you could cut them yourself from an old tyre but I would suggest that an innertube would be easier.
I only tried it as an experiment and they do burn well but as I do not need to burn rubber to get a fire going in the uk I would not really bother. I think they were being used in rainforest enviroments where finding dry tinder may be a problem, a block of wetfire is probably a better bet anyway
redcollective
27-07-2005, 12:32
This thread has interested me so I did some googling... tyres are quite a good foundry fuel apparently, provided they are burnt really hot... otherwise there are some toxic compound given off at lower temps ( I won't pretend to understand the chemistry or know exactly what compounds )... are there any chemists on the board? What's in a tyre.. rubber, wire, oil, anything else?
red
u almost answered that urself....
...tyres n rubbers contain oil. both of these can also contain additives too which i probably wouldnt like to be breathing in.
eg. the vulcanisation process involves natural rubber being cooked with sulphur....burning this at low temps is probably gonna give of some nasty sulphides and other potential toxic sulphurous compounds.
>cough cough splutter!!<
i dread to think wot goes in to some of these other products.
at the end of the day rubber n tyres fall into the hydrocarbons category and (all the ones that do) burn with tell-tale black smoke which is a chemical cocktail and never gonna be good for u.
redcollective
27-07-2005, 21:47
Cheers mate, the lesson is save the innertube for emergencies only! :)
fastbreak
04-08-2005, 13:49
What I find strange is that I have come accross quite a few burned-out cars in my time and almost always the tyres remained intact !
Heat rises ;)
.................so unless the car was upside down..............
Have fun
Mike
ScanDgrind
04-08-2005, 14:48
I use bicycle inner tubes in an emergency and they work a treat. If you slice the inner tube up so that you get rings of rubber like gigantic elastic bands, you can then cary a load of them by stretching them over your knife sheath. Then you've always got some with you... As long as you've remembered your knife of course :D .
Tony