Matches or lighters?

I use modern materials for firemaking, most of the time. Occasionally, though, I try to refresh the pre-industrial skills I developed many years ago. I like having options that do not depend on lengthy supply chains.

Ok, so I live in a cave and I heat with a wood stove. (Conveniently I stay cool in my cave in summer.) How to easily light a fire has been an important thing for me. Happily someone told me how to make fire starters by melting candle wax into egg cartons stuffed with dryer lint. It works. You end up with twelve little pods that can be broken apart. They're not pretty but again, they work.

I source candles from garage sales, cheap home goods stores, friends and neighbors. Egg cartons always seem to accumulate when people find out that I want them and sometimes the local farm and ranch store has extras to give me. I end up with far more than my two chickens can fill. Dryer lint can be more of a problem as it's just my laundry getting done here. I save it up all summer and sometimes bring it home from the animal shelter where I volunteer. We do LOTS of laundry there.

If I stuff used newspaper behind my wood to help the draw, and I put one fire starter under a little kindling and more wood, I can usually light a fire with one or two matches. And I stay stocked up on matches. Would you believe that the hardware store and grocery were out of them last year? I guess that we had more to worry about than toilet paper.

Give it a try. Repurposing is good, although I'm not sure that dryer lint had a purpose to begin with.

This is an interesting discussion. I have struggled with lighting the fire this winter. I am OK with buing something and then using it for decades even if it is not fully renewable or zero emission.

Bics and other short duration lighters do not even work when the house is 10'F. I had several different kinds, but frost freezes them.

Matches are a godsend, but they have to be bought, since I cannot make them on my farm.

I have a flint rod thingy, which gives a spark pretty much like a match. One cost 15 bucks and they promise 20.000 usage. Bought it in a scout shop. Not as easy as a match and I have been lazy pretty often and used the matches.

There is a fancy fire plunger from the legendary German Petromax. I was thinking ofvordering that. Haven't done it yet.

Magnifying glass is brilliant, but the trouble is that often you are lighting a fire in the darkness of winter, with the only brightness coming from your own intelligence 😄

roberta mccanse wrote:Ok, so I live in a cave and I heat with a wood stove. (Conveniently I stay cool in my cave in summer.) How to easily light a fire has been an important thing for me. Happily someone told me how to make fire starters by melting candle wax into egg cartons stuffed with dryer lint. It works. You end up with twelve little pods that can be broken apart. They're not pretty but again, they work.

I source candles from garage sales, cheap home goods stores, friends and neighbors. Egg cartons always seem to accumulate when people find out that I want them and sometimes the local farm and ranch store has extras to give me.

I have been doing the same thing -- making fire starters of out discard cartons and discard wax. I find the lint is not necessary -- I just paint the liquid wax on the pressed paper until it soaks in a little. When burning, the paper acts as a wick. I don't find it necessary to add lint or shavings, but then my kindling is usually pretty fine and pretty dry so it doesn't need much to coax it into flame.

Kaarina Kreus wrote:Bics and other short duration lighters do not even work when the house is 10'F. I had several different kinds, but frost freezes them.

There is a trick to that!

As an outdoorsman, I have been carrying butane lighters in winter for ages, down below -30C. I have never once been unable to make fire on demand. I carry them in my front pocket to stay warm. If they are cold, I put them inside my glove, in the palm of my hand, and shake them vigorously to create vapour -- and voila, behold, there be flame!

I favor strike anywhere matches.  Though, I understand their sale is outlawed in some areas.

According to one source, there are illegal in Wisconsin, MInnesota, Ohio, Alaska, Virginia, New Jersey, and California.