Well, Dink and I had a small bonfire the other day. Things got a bit, uh, fiery and verging on explosive-ish. The following video is of Dink stirring the fire, which for us meant using a shovel to turn over the ashes and coals. It was fun.
The funny thing is, this fire had almost no wood on it. It mostly consisted of leaves and cardboard (and maybe just a little bit of oil). In any case, it burned very well and we got rid of a lot of cardboard. Definitely worth it!
Since we’re going to go camping sometime this summer and we’re going to need to make fires, Dink and I decided to practice making one at home with our flint striker. We got it going good, and after we had the fire pretty high, we proceeded to douse it with at least a gallon of water. The fire swiftly went out, but we knew that we could make a fire with a flint striker.
On a couple of other camping trips, we used magnesium and purell, but the fire Dink and I made at home was made without magnesium or purell. I think it was because we had such good tinder to start it with. We used dandelion fluff and dried up morning-glory vines. Both those things were very dry, and they made a very good combination. The dandelion fluff only takes a spark to ignite, and the morning-glory stuff only took a tiny flame to ignite. If you get a spark on the dandelions, it will make a tiny flame, which will ignite the morning-glory stems, which will hopefully ignite the leaves and small twigs you have laid out.
If your tinder is very dry, it will be very easy to get a fire going with a flint striker as long as you know what you’re doing. You have to know how to make the fire bed, and if you do, it shouldn’t be too hard. Now Dink and I know that we can make a fire as long as we have the right things. We didn’t lay the fire down in the normal way, as you can see from the picture, but it still worked. We gathered a bunch of dried morning-glory vines and dandelion fluff and put them in a sandwich bag for when we go camping. They will probably come in handy and we look forward to using them.
by John
We just bought another item off of Ebay to use while camping. These matches are stormproof (windproof and waterproof). You can literally hold them under water and they will stay lit. They are easy to light and stay lit for fifteen seconds. Since we haven’t opened this product yet, we can’t rate it, but the reviews say that they work very well. They also say that they smell really bad while burning, but that doesn’t matter as long as they stay lit under harsh conditions. We saw some matches like these on the show “Survivorman”. They may have even been these exact matches! Anyway, we can hardly wait to use these while camping this spring and summer.
by Dink
Last summer when we went camping we wanted to see if we could use a flint striker to start our fire. We brought a Coghlan’s flint striker and we were able not only to light our fire, but we also lit our lantern and mosquito repelling candles. In order to get the original fire going, we did use magnesium, Purell, a couple of paper towels, and dead leaves, and it still took us about half an hour to get it going. Once we did get it going, though, it was very satisfying to sit back and watch the fire that we just spent thirty minutes making.
Anyway, we were very pleased with the flint striker. This product includes a metal striker, but you can also use the back of your pocket knife. I recommend this product highly for hardy campers. One interesting thing that we noticed was that the side of the flint striker and flint rod that you use effects it. For example, if you use the top side of the striker and the top side of the flint rod and you notice that it is not making any sparks, you might want to flip either the striker or the flint over and try again. I know this sounds like it’s just my imagination, but it really matters which sides you use. If it’s not making sparks, it could also be the layer of paint that they put on the rod. You have to scrape the paint off before striking.
Anyway, I hope you find this helpful. If you’re planning to go camping this summer, then you might want to consider buying this product, which you can do here. If you do end up buying it or any other flint striker on the market to take camping, remember this: bring magnesium or some other tinder starter with you, because it is VERY difficult to start a fire without magnesium, unless the leaves you are using are REALLY dry. Believe me, because we had to use Purell, magnesium, a paper towel, and leaves to get it going and it still took a half hour. One last thing I’ll say is you might want to watch a video of somebody using a flint striker. We watched Survivorman and that was helpful to us.
by Dink
The Weekly Day 