Kapok Hyper Tinder
Wanting to try out the "world's best tinder" as some call it, I ordered some Kapok from Shark tinderbox.
It certainly is very flammable. I would go so far as to say too flammable. When lit with a ferrocium rod, it almost explodes and is gone in a few seconds. It is quite tricky to get anything to catch off of it. The problem is amplified when using coal based methods such as char-cloth or Amadou lit from flint and steel. The kapok is so combustible it will smoulder away to nothing before you can get a flame from it.
Jute is far superior in this regard. It is just flame resistant enough that it will let you get it to ignition point before it smoulders away to nothing. Once it is alight Jute burns long enough to allow other things to catch from it. A fist sized ball of jute will burn for 10-15 seconds. The same amount of Kapok is gone in under 5.
So while impressed with just how combustible Kapok is, I'm not sure how useful it actually is as a tinder. I had ordered 3 baggies of Kapok so I wanted to find something to do with it. In an attempt to improve the burn time of this impressively combustible material, I have generously massaged Vaseline into the Kapok to create..... Hyper Tinder!
It now functions much like Vaseline cotton balls. One spark off a Swedish firesteel and you have a hot, and above all long-lasting flame that it is easy to light other things from. A cotton ball sized lump of my new hyper tinder when lit from a ferrocium rod burned for over a minute.
Of course, you don't need to go to the trouble of ordering it in to get this effect. Cotton balls rubbed with a little Vaseline are just as good when using ferrocium, but at least I found a use for the Kapok I ordered.
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Originally Posted by the interceptor boy
