Chared Tinder Fungus

[TheViking]

Hi...

As posted in my charcloth thread, I wrote that I tried to char a piece of tinder fungus. This is exellent! As long as it's fully dried before taking out of the can. I can highly recommend you all to try this out.... :wink: :biggthump

[Adi007]

The ultimate natural tinder!

[masongary44]

Does Crampball fungus need to be charred before it will take a spark from a fire-steel, or will it work OK straight from the tree (assuming it is nice and dry)??

I am doing a demo tonight for some local scouts on bow drill, and am throwing in some other stuff too... I managed to find my first crampballs yesterday while out on a 10 mile run and it would be nice for me and them if i can get it working with ease...

If i need to pre-char the fungus i can do it before i get there...

[Adi007]

It works fine as long as it's dry - charring is not needed and the longer you keep them the more fragile and crumbly they get.

[Andrew Middleton]

Where do you get tinder fungus from in the UK? I gather you mean the "horses hoof" stuff?

[masongary44]

Thanks for the reply, the demo went well, but as I expected, the scouts and cubs were more impressed by the chemical ignition techiques than the more traditional, harder learned skills.....

As for the fungus, how good is that!!!??!! :super:

As for the type and where I found it; it is the Crampball type, not the horses hoof and I found it on a dead ash tree (which they grow on exclusively), I have not yet found a source of the horses hoof fungus, but i will be keeping an eye out for one while I am out on runs...

On the plus side (and slightly off thread... sorry), I appear to have gotten the nack of bow drill, I successfully made 4 bow drill sets last night and managed to achieve fire with each, first time, within 1 minute (after the burn in and notch cutting) :rolmao:

I suppose hand drill has to be the next challenge.....

[bushwacker bob]

The last horse hoof fungus I found was growing on a living Beech tree.

[jakunen]

The three I'm hoping to collect this week are all on live trees. Infact all on the same tree!