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Written by British Red
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Page 7 of 8  Tinder procured from readily available household materials: Cotton wool: The fire makers friend. Dry cotton wool will catch any old spark and burst into flame. Cotton is of course a natural plant fibre! I carry some in small “ziplock” bags. Its cheap, widely available and foolproof. What’s not to like? Burning "plain" cotton wool   Cotton wool and Vaseline: Like cotton wool – just better! Rubbing a small amount of Vaseline into the cotton wool gives a long lasting burn. A small ball will burn from 5 to 10 minutes! Vaseline is of course “petroleum jelly” – petrol! The cotton starts to burn and vaporises the jelly. It then acts like lots of candle wicks and the result is probably the easiest lighting, best burning, tinder that I know. "PJ" coated cotton wool
How it burns..... |
| Drier Lint: A lot of people recommend this but I have to say, cotton wool is better (and only 99p for a big bag). Drier lint is the stuff from the lint trap in your tumble drier. The quality depends on what was washed though and there can be lots of other (non cotton) fibres mixed in. Stick to cotton wool is my advice!  Charcloth: Another of my personal favourites. Easily made by charring natural fibre cloth in an airtight tin with a small hole. Ensure you use only natural fibres (cotton or linen are great). Some are treated with a flame retardant so be sure you use those that aren’t. Charcloth is my tinder of choice with “proper” flint and steel but its good for lots of uses. Again, it’s a “glowing” tinder so to produce flame, its best dropped into a ball of fibrous tinder and blown into flame. Smoldering Charcloth Olive oil: I have found that many tinders can be improved by smearing or dripping on Olive or other vegetable oil. I always have some in my Bergan for cooking and have noticed that a piece of cloth or cotton wool with oil rubbed in burns very hot and long – same principle as cotton wool and Vaseline – plenty of easily combustible hydrocarbons in oil – the Romans used it as lamp oil after all.
Cotton wool an olive oil |
| Charred wick: I use a lot of oil lamps. I’ve noticed that a wick that has been burned before lights very easily. A small piece of charred lamp wick can be used to catch a spark and transfer the heat to another less volatile tinder. It can then be extinguished and re-used. Again it can be improved with a little oil. Glowing lamp wick Candles: Many survival instructors advise using a candle to start a fire. The one advantage these have is cheapness! “Tealight” type candles can be had  for about 2p each and only cotton wool and petroleum jelly can equal that for cheapness. Two top tips. 1) If using tealights, light them at home and blow them out – charred wicks light more easily 2) Try using the “trick” birthday cake candles that don’t blow out!
A birthday candle - small and portable! Candle wax and sawdust: I have heard of people using homemade firelighters made from candle wax and sawdust (with or without embedded wicks). I see no reason why they wouldn’t work, but for me, if going that far, I’ll take a packet of firelighters.
Wire wool: Wire wool works very well as a firelighter and burns very, very hot. Ideally you want the fine stuff (0000 or 00000). It lights from a batter or spark and glows like a bulb filament – literally red hot. It wont flame so have another tinder or fine kindling available to catch the heat – it doesn’t last long. Interestingly a few drops of added oil work well again!. |
  “Hairy” string: Good old fashioned garden string is just vegetable fibres (usually jute). I keep a small hank in my pouch. Its good for firelighting when teased apart plus shelter building and washing lines ! Jute fibres - great for catching a spark!
Prawn Crackers. Really. Want a bet?
A burning prawn cracker. No preparation involved - try it!
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We all love to take photographs and keep a record of what we've done and where we have been. Michelle Jones has written this article is for those starting out into photography so that you can get the most from your camera and what you are trying to capture.
I used Hazel wood. Choose the
thin long shoots of wood which i would think are a couple of years old.
If you don't catch anything at first don't worry. It may just be a case of
changing a few things.
Most bushcrafters know that Birch bark is fantastic for fire lighting
because of all the oil concealed within it. This tutorial guides you
through the process of extracting that tar from the bark.
Now we could bung a label on (which should always say they type of wine and when it was bottled). I suggest you cross-reference to a book of recipes and notes so that when you get a cracking wine you can recreate it. We are going to add a little something to the presentation of the wine by putting a foil cap over the neck. First we drop a foil cap (available for a couple of pence from a wine shop) over the bottle neck.
Right, we now have clean, fined and filtered wine. We pour it into clean (yes and sterilised) bottles with a funnel. We need to cork it. Its possible to put corks in with a mallet. I use a corking gun and waxed corks that do not need to be soaked (plain corks do)
Well, the finings have worked – the wine is beautifully clear.
As soon as I'd finished my Paracord Bracelet, I'd decided to write a tutorial on making one. A good thing considering the majority of the responses since I posted it were asking me how to do it! Here goes.. You will need approximately 3 metres of paracord with the ends already sealed/melted, and something to make a temporary knot - a twist tie or piece of string should suffice.
I have been asked a number of times recently to provide some advice of guidance on the best way to sharpen an axe. Whilst I am always happy to provide input, I thought that it might be worthwhile to put together a tutorial on the basic techniques. The techniques used in here are intended to provide not only a sharp axe but also a safe and efficient axe.
There was a period in my life where I lived out of a pack for months at a time and this was one of my staples.
I like to coil it like a rope on a stick and bake it over hot coals...
There are many different ways you can make a berry picker but this is just a design i came up with which uses a packet of kebab skiewers and some discs of wood.
The whole kit took less than three hours to finally pull together — though that really overlooks by far the most time-consuming aspect, the preparation of materials. In fact, preparation has two components, actually. The first is the selection of materials. The second is the actual preparation.