After taking part in some online discussions, I realised that a lot of people didn’t actually understand what feather sticks are all about. The problem became apparent under a picture showing someone batoning with their knife. As always, I took the stance defending batoning as a viable method of cutting small trees down and splitting wood.
And there it began. I was attacked for being a ‘Rambo’ cutting trees with a knife or waisting my time on ‘useless’ activities such as feather sticking which, as everyone knows, don’t come in handy everyday. Like most survival skills, I replied quickly. The thing is, when they finally do come in handy, you either know what you’re doing or die.
I also received a bunch of good advices regarding lighting fires in a heavy rain or in damp conditions. These were very helpful in allowing me to compose a list of most common myths and misconceptions. It appears that most people would trust dead spruce/fir twigs, pine needles or birch bark (or that they’ve simply never seen a heavy rain in their lives). I would also add fat wood but, like the former fire starters, it also isn’t available everywhere to everyone. And that is the first big problem with those methods – they simply can’t be applied where there are no conifers and birch trees.
The second problem is, those methods simply aren’t fail safe. If it’s been raining heavily and we only have a few matches, chances are we will not have a fire if we decide to go for one of the above fire starters. Yes, I know. All these materials will burn when damp and some species of birch produce bark that can supposedly be lit when soaking wet. The problem is, neither I, nor millions of other people around the world have access to that birch species and I’m not so sure it works every time in all conditions anyway. Or if it’ll catch fire before I run out of matches or gas in my lighter.
As to the pine needles and twigs, they don’t work at all when properly wet. And no, you can’t dry them in your clothes if you’re dripping wet yourself. And if you aren’t soaking wet yet, it’s probably not the best idea to get purposely wet and cold in a survival situation in pouring rain when your chances of starting a fire are as low as the temperature.
If you din’t believe me, take a look at the video, in which I also show what really works every time in all weather and why it is so important that you know it.
Some time ago I posted a video in which I explain extensively how to get an ember with a traditional flint and steel. That was the easy way using a piece of charred cloth (I also explained how to make charred cloth). Although, sometimes this proves difficult too. Especially if you’ve never done anything like this before.
But let’s say we’ve mastered this stage. We can now move on to something more difficult but at the same time more natural, self-sufficient and also more historically accurate. That is not to say charred cloth was not used back in the day. It was, but rather rarely since cloths, clothes and fabrics in general were a precious commodity before the industrial revolution. A common man would definitely not tear up his clothes just to be able to make a fire. Not if he could find other materials to achieve his goal without loosing his only shirt.
There are tons of natural tinders you can find in the woods. Most will have to be charred or otherwise processed. Some, even longer time ago, so long it seems ancient past and I apologise for the quality and my appearance, I posted another video about flint and steel fire. In that one I show pieces of horse hoof fungus, or rather pieces of amadou obtained from a horse hoof fungus. That amadou had been boiled in wood ash supposedly to get rid of fire retardants found in the fungus. I’d heard about this somewhere, can’t even remember where now, and thought I’d give it a try since up until then I’d been unable to get an ember with a traditional flint and steel and horse hoof fungus amadou.
It worked pretty well as you can see in the video and yesterday, centuries after that video, I showed it to some of the London Wildlife Trust volunteers at Camley Street.
We took it step by step and some of the volunteers ended up catching a spark on a piece of prepared amadou. So it definitelly works and seems like a great charred cloth equivalent for a medieval peasant who, unlike us, couldn’t afford a £5 cotton T-shirt from Primark. Especially that horse hoof fungus was and probably still is quite common and easy to find. Must’ve been even easier with all those trees and ancient forests we’ve lost since the Middle Ages.
The problem is, it takes forever to first peal the hard shell off to get to the amadou, then slice the spongy stuff into manageable pieces, soften them by twisting, stretching and rubbing, and finally boiling in wood ash for hours and drying. What if you just want to make an emergency fire with your high carbon steel knife and a piece of flint?
Well, you may look for some of the natural tinders that are not as common as horse hoof fungus, but at least don’t require any preparation.
Those include the true tinder fungus or chaga, which is rare and grows on live birch trees. All it takes to get this one glowing is a bit of scraping and cutting into smaller pieces. Needless to say, it should be dry. Works every time. Even in winter. And unlike the next tinder fungus does not absorb moisture as readily.
Another choice is the King Alfred’s Cake or Cramp Balls. This is also a great natural tinder which works without any preparation other than crumbling in fingers. The hard shell needs to be removed exposing the layered structure inside. It’s found on dead ash trees and branches. The only problem with this fungus is the fact that it is so hygroscopic. It literally soaks up moisture from humid air. It recently went mouldy on me because I kept it at home in a closed container.
The last but not least of the natural tinder materials we will talk about today is punk wood. Punk wood is nothing else than just rotten wood. What we are interested in is a hard wood at just the right stage of decomposition. How do you tell the right stage? I don’t know. After some time you just feel it when touching the spongy stuff. But I do get it wrong sometimes so I guess it’s gonna be a bit of trial and error for the most part.
In fact, most punk wood you’ll find will only catch sparks if previously charred. It’ll also glow if treated with sun rays let through a magnifying glass. But some, the one of the right specimen and at the right decomposition stage, will actually catch sparks without any preparation. I recently found some perfectly rotten logs. They’re too rotten for me to tell what species that was but they catch sparks and smoulder so well, one can virtually hear the pieces sizzle. The smell is delicious too 🙂
If you can find any of these (there’s more, I’m sure), you happen to have a fairly hard high carbon steel knife and a piece of flint, quartz or even sharp broken piece of glass you’re in business. You should be able to make fire without anything that a modern man would call a fire-making equipment. As long as your tinder is dry, of course.
After taking part in some online discussions, I realised that a lot of people didn’t actually understand what feather sticks are all about. The problem became apparent under a picture showing someone batoning with their knife. As always, I took the stance defending batoning as a viable method of cutting small trees down and splitting wood.
And there it began. I was attacked for being a ‘Rambo’ cutting trees with a knife or waisting my time on ‘useless’ activities such as feather sticking which, as everyone knows, don’t come in handy everyday. Like most survival skills, I replied quickly. The thing is, when they finally do come in handy, you either know what you’re doing or die.
The second problem is, those methods simply aren’t fail safe. If it’s been raining heavily and we only have a few matches, chances are we will not have a fire if we decide to go for one of the above fire starters. Yes, I know. All these materials will burn when damp and some species of birch produce bark that can supposedly be lit when soaking wet. The problem is, neither I, nor millions of other people around the world have access to that birch species and I’m not so sure it works every time in all conditions anyway. Or if it’ll catch fire before I run out of matches or gas in my lighter.
As to the pine needles and twigs, they don’t work at all when properly wet. And no, you can’t dry them in your clothes if you’re dripping wet yourself. And if you aren’t soaking wet yet, it’s probably not the best idea to get purposely wet and cold in a survival situation in pouring rain when your chances of starting a fire are as low as the temperature.
