I am retarded and I spend multiple hours fucking around trying to start a campfire until it starts burning. It's pretty much wet outside and temperatures go below freezing often.Birch bark works well to start it, but I want to figure out how to start without it. Tried feather sticks multiple times, but it takes a very long time and results are mixed at best. And yes, the wood is dry... As for carrying some firestarting material, I don't want to because autism.My latest idea was to split a log in half, and then with surform make enough wood shavings to start a fire, but no idea if this will work (pic related)Any advice on how to improve firestarting would be greatly appreciated
>>2852783>As for carrying some firestarting material, I don't want to because autism.Just make one featherstick at home and take it with you.Once you have a fire, use the saved time to make another one.
I always take a book with me and burn the pages I finished
>>2852783The amount of very small tinder and kindling you need is about 4-5x more. This is the most important step, especially if things are wet. Second you really want prep the site well. You need your wood orderly, your fire stacked nicely or with material ready to go right away. If you are just stacking a little wood and hitting it with a small pile like the one pictured, that's not gonna cut it with wet wood. Your are probably seeing success later on as you repeatedly dry out your fuel with each attempt.
In the old days woodsmen might keep a small tin on them with tinder; maybe some punkwood that could hold a spark, or charcloth. The modern day equivalent is just keep a small baggie or altoids tin with a handful of cotton balls smeared with a good amount of Vaseline. To use just take a cotton ball, remove most of the grease, pull it apart gently so it’s a fluffy little ball, put that at the base of your fire wood and you’re good to go. One little cotton ball like that burns a surprisingly long time, enough to get your fire going. The next most important thing to starting your fire is to prep it. Forget the whittled stick. What you need is a good sized bundle of twigs, match stick size, another good sized bundle of sticks pencil sized, another bundle finger thickness, then a nice pile of wood about two to three inches in diameter, and your larger pieces of wood after that. There are two good options for laying out the wood to start your fire. The first is to get a piece of wood or branch a few inches thick and about a foot long and set it in your fire pit. Then lean a handful of matchstick sized twigs against the wood, then on top of those some of the pencil sized sticks and finger sized sticks. Take some dry leaves or just your Vaseline soaked cotton ball tinder and place it below the twigs and light it. The fire will start straight away and as it does feed it some larger finger sized pieces and gradually larger until the fire is going nice and strong. You can then add even bigger pieces until you have yourself a full blown campfire. The key is to not starve the fire early on by not giving it enough small pieces, or conversely, smothering it by trying to add large pieces of wood too fast. It’s a balancing act but you’ll catch on quickly . The second way to lay out the wood that also works well is to get a nice pile of match thickness twigs in the center of the pit, and build a little house of alternating sticks around it..
>>2852783pine tree needles, dead tall grass, make a birds nest with dead regular grass
>>2852926how strange
>>2853334thats very helpful, thank you. has anyone here tried using dried tinder conk? if it was good enough for oetzi it should be good enough for us
>>2853334how about something soaked in gasoline or is that too dangerous
>>2852926That's a weird thing to lie about.
>>2852783Dryer lint is basically charcloth and it’s very light. I save all of it and use it to light fires
>>2853604how you're gonna store that? you need airtight container of some sort for something that might make an unexpected explosion if you're slow and let the vapors built up. better take wax, petroleum jelly, pine resin, all waterproof and more stable.>>2853690no it's not. most of today's clothes are polyester so it's not pure cotton. i mean, it may work, but soak it with wax/petroleum jelly like cotton balls to last longer and be waterproof
>>2853694yeah i was thinking carry a little bit of it in a tiny bottle then dab a little onto a rag or cotton but vaseline is better it's also more versatile
>>2852783Here's an old boomer trick I was taught:Take a tire, lube the inside with old car oil, and pour gasoline on it. Gasoline ignites easily, gasopine ignites the car oil (hard to ingnite on its own), and the car oil ignites the rubber (very hard to ignite on its own). Once the rubber ignites, NOTHING takes it down.
>>2852783People smarter than you store birch bark for when they can't find it, don't willfully be a retard because you think it will make other people think you're cool.
