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21-401: Tinder can be made of any flammable substance, as long as it is finely divided and has an open structure. Any flammable material may be used as long as it is finely divided. As the tinder gets thinner, the surface area and edges increase, making it ignite more easily. Wood tinder can be made by carefully shaving thin slivers off a larger piece. Another method which keeps these slivers together,

42-433: A fuzz stick ) is a length of wood which has been shaved to produce a cluster of thin curls protruding from the wood. It allows damp wood to be used to start a fire when dry tinder is hard to find. It is believed to be a traditional method of fire starting, using basic tools and methods. Feather sticks are made from dead "standing" wood, such as a branch that has broken from a tree and died, but has not yet fallen to

63-424: A tin box into a campfire; like charcoal , it is the product of anhydrous pyrolysis . It is very fragile, and should usually be prepared only in small quantities. Pitchwood is the resinous wood which decays last from dead conifers . It can be found on the ground where conifer tree trunks have fallen and decayed. The parts of the deadwood that would form the knots in lumber, i.e. the places where branches entered

84-457: A fire is more difficult. Applying the same principle that has been used throughout history by indigenous peoples, char cloth can start a fire with only the help of flint and steel, it is then placed in a tinder bundle and blown into flames. It is easily made on a small scale, making it accessible and popular in the domestic sphere and while cooking on campfires. When struck against steel, a flint edge produces sparks. ‘The hard flint edge shaves off

105-423: A particle of the steel that exposes iron, which reacts with oxygen from the atmosphere and can ignite the proper tinder ’. With this flint and steel technique the char cloth will ignite and an “ember will flash through it” allowing for a flame to be built around the ember. Although the char cloth is slow burning, the spark will need to be fostered using small kindling materials such as dried leaves, small twigs or

126-505: A tinder bundle. Char cloths have been used to light fires for centuries. One of the earliest recorded uses of a char cloth dates back to a ninjutsu manual written by Hattori Hanzō in 1560 called the Ninpiden or Shinobi Hiden, or Legends of Ninja Secrets. The manual states how to make char cloth from either cotton, silk or paper. “Crumple cotton, silk, or paper until it is soft. Divide it into small amounts, and dry-roast it until it

147-408: Is a small swatch of fabric made from a natural fibre (such as linen , cotton , jute etc.) that has been converted through pyrolysis . Char cloth looks like a black, fragile piece of cloth. It is usually made from swatches of organic fabrics, but similar tinder can be made in the same way using cotton balls or tampons, dried moss, leaves or fungus ( amadou for instance), raw unspun flax, etc. This

168-505: Is black, paying attention that it doesn’t burn white. Keep it within a tightly covered container and be sure to always have some at hand.” Another use of char cloth was recorded by C. P. Mountford and R. M. Berndt in Making Fire by Percussion, where the introduction of char cloth to Australian Indigenous Aboriginals is detailed, saying the use of char cloth was easier than traditional methods. Char cloth has also been noted as used by

189-453: Is packed into a small, almost airtight, rectangular tin, then heated slowly and steadily over coals for a long period of time, allowing it to undergo thermal decomposition (aka, pyrolysis). The material that remains after this process is complete ignites very easily, making it the preferred tinder when lighting a fire using flint and steel. Pyrolysis is defined as "a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in

210-512: Is sold in stores in shaved or bar form. Shavings burn white-hot, are impossible to smother with carbon dioxide or sand, and can ignite even wet kindling. Solid bars are impossible to ignite under normal conditions (and difficult even with a welding torch ), and are thus very safe to carry. Magnesium powder and shavings are pyrophoric (they oxidise rapidly when exposed to the air). It is dangerous to carry pre-shaved magnesium — at best, it loses potency, at worst, it can spontaneously ignite and

231-449: Is then nearly unquenchable. Magnesium bars are sometimes sold with a length of ferrocerium cast into one edge. The gathering of tinder, and perhaps more importantly, its dry storage is one of the most critical aspects of many survival situations. Materials used as tinder around the world include: [REDACTED] The dictionary definition of tinder at Wiktionary Feather stick A feather stick (sometimes referred to as

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252-444: Is to make a feather stick . The driest wood, which makes the best tinder, is that of dead branches that have not yet fallen to the ground. If a fire is to be lit by sparks rather than matches, char cloth , punkwood, fungus or down are commonly used to catch the sparks. However, fungi should be selected with care as some release toxic fumes on combustion . Char cloth can be made by placing plant-based fabric (usually cotton ) in

273-429: The thermal decomposition of material in an inert atmosphere (in the absence of oxygen). At elevated temperatures of greater than 250 °C, cellulose decomposes to form considerable amounts of flammable products, one of these being bio-mass . "Biomass is a complex material, mainly composed of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin in addition to extractives (tannins, fatty acids, resins) and inorganic salts". Char cloth

294-663: The Galapágos A Historical Non-Fiction Novel”, which aims to “relate the events concerning the settlement of Floreana Island in the Galápagos Archipelago in the early 1930s by European ex-pats”, char cloth is mentioned. Timmons writes that a European captain withdrew his oil cloth that contained his “tobacco and tinderbox, which held inside his flint and steel and bits of char cloth”. The production of char cloth occurs when organic cellulose based fibres undergo pyrolysis , an irreversible chemical reaction that includes

315-441: The absence of oxygen”. Basically pyrolysis is turning organic matter into charcoal , a low weight, high energy content, very easily ignited matter. Fresh charcoal can even autoignite , even though its autoignition temperature (349 – 455   °C) is not that low (for instance, paper's is 218–246 °C (424–475 °F)); this is because, if even a small point ignites, it will generate more energy than lost, igniting

336-467: The cloth around, so energy and temperature will build up until it turns red hot ember. The cloth usually does not produce enough gas for it to produce flames, but if close enough to something that can, a full fire will finally occur. This material, when properly prepared, will ignite with the slightest spark and provides a slow burning, hot ember to build the fire around, making it very popular with campers; especially in harsh weather conditions when lighting

357-442: The flame is sheltered from rain and wind. In the southeastern United States, pitchwood is known as "fat lighter" or "lighter'd" (a shortening of lighter-wood). Embers of burned paper, leaves and other sheetlike materials are easily carried off by air currents, where they can alight upon other objects and ignite them. In outdoor campfires, paper can be wadded up to reduce this hazard; wadded paper also burns more quickly. Magnesium

378-422: The ground. The bark and the outer layer of wood are removed to reveal the drier heartwood . This is then shaved, with axe or knife, to produce as many curls as possible. While the flakes can be fairly coarse, the finer they are shaved the more easily they ignite . Feather sticks can be used with char cloth , where a small piece of the cloth is wound around the curls and a spark is struck on to it, using either

399-654: The indigenous people of Hawaii in 1940. In the Hawaiian Journal of History, when describing the smoking habits of the islanders, the use of char cloth to light tobacco is briefly mentioned as a method introduced by colonists to the Hawaiian people. “This was not a traditional Hawaiian way of starting fires but was the flint and steel method introduced from the West.” In the historical non-fiction novel by Jonothan Timmons titled “Outlandish: A Human History of Violence in

420-403: The traditional flint and steel or a modern ferrocerium striker. This is then blown onto until the curls catch fire: the whole feather stick is then placed into the waiting kindling to start the campfire. Char cloth Char cloth , also called char paper , is a material with low ignition temperature, used as tinder when lighting a fire. It is the main component in a tinderbox . It

441-480: The trunk, are impregnated with resin which has the combustibility of wood soaked in lighter fluid . Pitchwood can also be found in the stumps left in the ground when conifers die. These stumps contain spires of resin-impregnated wood, called fatwood , which can easily be lighted using only a single match or lighter. Pitchwood that has been shaved into small splinters is easy to ignite, and it does not absorb water, so it remains easy to ignite in any weather as long as

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