Playing with fire

Making a wood fire is something that, no matter how many times I do it, I never get tired of. I love the dancing flames, the warmth, the smoke, the crackling of the burning wood....

I got a new mini fire-lighting kit in a trade with Sticks65. It contains a mini steel striker, some small pieces of flint, some fat wood, a mini tinder tube with some cotton rope, some jute tinder and extra jute twine, a length of waxed thread, all contained in a nice old chromed brass tin. I replaced the pieces of flint for a larger piece because it was a bit on the small size for my fingers. The cotton rope is different, as I have been experimenting with some different small ropes.



I have not used a tinder tube before but I am quickly being converted. I made another one this morning, a bit bigger, I just used a length of bamboo and a piece of oil lamp wick, it took about 5 minutes to make!



Bamboo may not be the most practical to use as it did singe a bit, but that could be because I was trying to take pictures and left the tube in the straw nest a bit too long! It's easy to replace with a piece of coppet tube or a small bone.

I tried to take a couple of pictures of the process, but found I didn't have enough hands...So no pics of the striking of the steel on the flint, or of the glowing ember, it does not show well on the pic I took. It was very easy and took only a few strikes and no more than 10 seconds to get an ember glowing.

A few moments of blowing in the straw and there you have it: fire!!



Then I ran out of batteries for the camera, so no pictures of the fire or of the boiling kettle and the final cuppa!