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To: Noumenon
An idea for a quick, easy and certain fire starter. Save your dryer lint! Yes! Dryer lint. Also save a few egg cartons of the paper variety.

Get a block of paraffin (available at most grocery stores).

Melt the paraffin in a can or pan. Place some lint in the sections of the egg carton. Pour paraffin in the section to cover the lint.

When the paraffin sets, cut the egg carton sections into single units.

When you need a quick, sure fire, just use any flame source (I recommend the wand style gas lighters) and ignite the paraffin and voila, hard to extinguish fire.

I have started wood fires without tinder with 100% luck. No smoke, no smell except the wood you choose! They burn for 10+ minutes.

Good luck!

10 posted on 02/05/2011 10:01:45 AM PST by chooseascreennamepat
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To: chooseascreennamepat
I make similar "fire starters." I've never used dryer lint, though that would definitely work.

My filler/wick material of choice is small wood chips. The little stuff that's all over the place after splitting a pile of wood for the wood stove at home works. Break the longer bits into pieces 1" or shorter.

Paper shreddings also work well for the filler/wick material.

The rest of this looks good.

If you're in an cold climate area, a "heater/stove" is a good idea. A sterno type works, though you can make your own with a metal coffee can, a spare roll of toilet paper and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Have a ceramic, or stoneware plate, or a metal cover to snuff it out. You make the "heater" by removing the cardboard roll from the center of the toilet paper, placing it in the metal coffee can, and filling the can with alcohol (rubbing alcohol is fine, but if you can find 90% or 95% rather than 70%, it will be better). Pull a "Wick" up from the center of the roll and light it. This can be used as a heater, or as a makeshift cook stove.


One last note. If TSHTFT, and you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
16 posted on 02/05/2011 10:12:44 AM PST by cc2k ( If having an "R" makes you conservative, does walking into a barn make you a horse's (_*_)?)
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To: chooseascreennamepat
If you are in a wet place, like the PNW you will want a folding saw. The only way to get dry fuel for a fire is to look for standing dead trees. There are lots of small diameter (couple inches) trees like that in overgrown forest. Many of them can simply be pushed over

Use the saw to cut a small baton length, and cut the rest into useable lengths. Use the baton and your knife to split the rest of the wood for the fire.

18 posted on 02/05/2011 10:18:58 AM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: chooseascreennamepat; cc2k; Noumenon

Another approach is:

1. Get a wooden dowel about 5/8” in diameter and wrap a sheet of newspaper around it, and then tie a piece of string around each end and the center (or put on three rubber-bands that aren’t very snug).

2. Remove the dowel and staple one end of the paper tube securely closed. If you used rubber-bands in Step 1 and they collapse the tube, they’re too tight.

3. Prop it up vertical, fill with melted paraffin, and let cool/solidify. You don’t want to be spilling the melted paraffin on your hand.

4. When cool/solid, cut into pieces roughly 6” to 8” long.

You’ve now got what are essentially candles with exterior wicks.

You can light the paper, use it to light a fire (as the paper burns, the wax will melt and can be poured-out to assist in lighting the fire), extinguish, let cool, and stick it back in your pocket.

Multiple times.


36 posted on 02/05/2011 11:52:08 AM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: chooseascreennamepat
quick, easy and certain fire starter. Save your dryer lint! Yes! Dryer lint. Also save a few egg cartons of the paper variety. Get a block of paraffin (available at most grocery stores). Melt the paraffin in a can or pan. Place some lint in the sections of the egg carton. Pour paraffin in the section to cover the lint.

That idea's a keeper...

88 posted on 03/07/2011 5:11:58 PM PST by GOPJ (http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php - It's only uncivil when someone on the right does it.- Laz)
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