Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Fire Tinder Tube

One way of starting a fire is with the use of flint and steel. This method requires a tinder to catch the sparks produced when the steels strikes the flint. The tinder used oftentimes is a char cloth. I've seen some people in Youtube use chaga as tinder but the majority uses char cloth. I myself uses char cloth as tinder for flint and steel firemaking but char cloth is somewhat messy to use. While browsing the Internet, I came across a fire tinder tube from Rons Primitive Skills blog. I thought it was a very cool idea so I decided to make one.


This is the fire tinder tube from Rons Primitive Skills blog. Visit his blog to learn more about it.


The 3 cotton ropes I bought from eBay. I have charred one of the rope end and tried it with my flint and steel. It works well and not so messy as char cloth is. All I need now is the copper tube and I'm good to go. It will be a nice addition to my fire kit.

That's all folks! Thanks for reading.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Hand Warmers

Brrr. The temperature is really going down to almost single digit, usually in the 12-10 degrees range this week. I guess it's time to bring out the hand warmers.

My job requires me to work outside early in the morning for 1-2 hours and with these kind of weather you're sure to get numb and painful fingers, even when you have your gloves on. Before I had my hand warmer, I used to go back inside the building maybe 2 or 3 times to warm my hands and that's a lot of hustle because you have to walk quite a distance. Ever since I had my hand warmer I don't need to do that anymore.


The Jon-e hand warmer I bought in a garage sale last summer for $2. You have to fill it with lighter fluid and light it and works similar to a regular liquid filled lighter. Zippo also makes a hand warmer like this and there are China made ones that are of comparable quality. One refill will last for 8 hours, they say, but I haven't used the hand warmer that long yet.

There are also disposable single-use hand warmers and there are reusable ones that are chemically filled but they do not give enough heat. The same is true with electronic hand warmers. For me, the Jon-e type hand warmers are the best.

That's all folks! Thanks for reading.