I donned my new straw hat, camera in hand and removed the steel striker, flint and charcloth from the tin can holder.
I peeled off a bit of charcloth and held it to the flint and then spent a frustrating, somewhat painful and cramping 15 minutes thwacking and hitting the damn steel against it.
I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was getting sparks. Sure, the flint was getting a bit dull in some sections, and that was affecting the result I wanted, but sparks kept flying.
Sure, I eventually got the charcloth smoldering, and it only took a moment to blow it into flames with some wood shavings from the shed.
But 15 minutes is too long when you need to get a fire going. And it was in calm, windless weather - all conditions optimal. I was warm and hydrated and my fingers were uncut and undamaged from canoeing and bushwhacking. I was in the backyard after a grueling day of sitting around. And then a thought occurred to me. I grabbed my keys, ran through the house muttering to Spring that I was just getting something from the car. I had put the charcloth that I made myself last week into a tinder kit in my knapsack that was sitting in my trunk.
I opened the zip lock bag, tore a strip off of the roll and compared it to the sample that came with my kit. Mine is the one on the left in the image above, and the one that came with the kit is on the right. Two differences jumped out to me. Mine was evenly carbonized, unlike the somewhat unburnt sections in the other - but more importantly (I think), mine was very thin, with fine charcloth fibers surrounded by air.
Feeling quite confident (as confident as one can feel in such circumstances, sitting in the backyard with a beer), I doubled over a strip of my charcloth on the upper edge of the flint, struck down with the steel and instantly my charcloth caught a spark.
Without any help, the embers grew and I could feel the heat coming off the strip.
Time after time, I put a new piece of charcloth on the flint, and time after time I got the charcloth glowing hot. To paraphrase James Carville - "It's the charcloth, stupid."
Pleased with the results, I sat back and watched the sun begin to go down. A woodpecker arrived to nibble on the suet hanging from the bird feeder.
A grackle (I think) dropped by to sample the dropped bird seed.
I examined the lawn that I had intended to mow, and decided to mow it tomorrow.
I pondered the shed and wondered how I was going to get a ramp set up to the door.
And since it was Sunday evening, I relaxed.
And Monty and I just sat, and Spring read her book and relaxed.
Cheers,
Mungo
5 Bahs!:
That was a nice photo of a brown haded cowbird that you had there! (Though these birds are pests to other birds, they have their own beauty in my opinion.)
OK, now you've done it. Damn! Now I have to take all of the matches out of ALL of my camping bags and kits. That in itself could take all day. (won't be so bad with a cold beer, but .... Why did I read your Blog?) I camp all the time and have recently been ...kind of blcking the view of me starting all of my campfires with my moster box of matches.
Now, thanks to you, I have to get a bucnh of flint kits together. How cool is it going to be when I am at the campground, starting my fire with fint and the dork beside me in the rediculous RV starts hi with his built in blow torch?!
I'd be tempted to write to your original char cloth supplier. and say "...what's this char cloth, stupid!"
I manage to catch only slightly charred material (I'm sure you saw my vid a couple of posts back) so I think you've got it dead right that the material more than the spread of the char matters.
Regards,
Pablo.
Pablo's Woodlife
1)your so called charcloth is in fact charred cloth and they did not use it much in the early to mid 18th century. You need to find yourself a supply of plant tinders.(you really should have bought my book, not many copies left now!)
2) Don't hold the tinder on the flint, it can be done with Amadou because it is fabric like, but the best methods are to strike the steel with the flint, not the flint with the steel. When using original equipment like the tinderbox you will see that this is the correct way, you do not try to strike sparks into a tinderbox by striking the flint with the steel!!!
3) By using a tinderbox you save tinder, just put the lid on/close the lid after use. 4) The tinderbox is also used for tinder production in the field. You char the plant material directly in the fire and then place it in the tinderbox and close the lid.
Le Loup.
That was a nice photo of a brown haded cowbird that you had there! (Though these birds are pests to other birds, they have their own beauty in my opinion.)
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